Commission on Population and Development                  POP/856        

Thirty-sixth Session                                         31 March 2003

1^st & 2^nd Meeting (AM & PM)                          

EDUCATION FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS VITAL FOR ACHIEVING DEVELOPMENT GOALS,

POPULATION COMMISSION TOLD AT OPENING OF THIRTY-SIXTH SESSION

Speakers Also Concerned over Shortfalls in Funds for Population Activities

Education, especially for women and girls, was vital in international efforts to achieve developmental goals, Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, told the Commission on Population and Development today as it opened its thirty-sixth session.

Addressing the main theme of the session –- population, education and development -- Mr. Desai noted that education had been a classic cross-cutting theme of major conferences of the 1990s.  The Commission could give crucial guidance to a General Assembly working group currently putting together a report on the coordinated and integrated follow-up of those conferences.

Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said that ensuring education for all children was a key goal of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).  Since that conference, population education programmes and policies had increasingly emphasized health issues, including reproductive health.

Global population, she said, would rise from 6.3 billion at present to
8.9 billion in 2050, 400 million lower than estimates made in 2000.  Lower population growth was due to increasing mortality, mainly due to HIV/AIDS, and lower birth rates, and thanks to successful family planning and reproductive health programmes.  Strengthening those programmes was critical, she said, adding that family-planning demands would increase about 40 per cent by 2015.

Joseph Chamie, Director of the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said the United Nations for the first time had projected that future fertility levels in most developing countries would fall below 2.1 children per woman -- the level needed for long-term replacement of the population -- at some point in this century.  By 2050, three out of every four countries in less developed regions would be experiencing below-replacement fertility.

Introducing one of the session’s reports and launching its debate,
Larry Heligman, Assistant Director of the Population Division, highlighted education’s key role in national development, individual well-being and personal fulfilment.  Highly educated men and women were more likely than less educated people to pursue careers after graduation, and marry later in life.  Higher education often led to better health and lower mortality.

During the ensuing discussion, several speakers stressed that education was still inaccessible to a vast number of people, especially girls.  Investment in girls’ education, they pointed out, paid off by delaying their marriage age, improving women’s access to family planning, and increasing their productivity and income.  Other speakers emphasized the vital role education played in preventing HIV/AIDS and mitigating its effects on individuals, families and communities.

Many delegates expressed concern over the decline in international funding to support population activities in developing countries.  The Cairo target of mobilizing $17 billion by the year 2000 had fallen short, they said, and efforts by developing countries to raise funds had gone unmatched by assistance from developed countries.  The international community must reverse that negative trend and revitalize the flow of resources.

In other business today, the Commission elected the officers of its bureau, who included Gediminas Serksnys (Lithuania), Chairman; and Iftekhar Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Crispin Grey-Johnson (Gambia), Marc Bichler (Luxembourg),
Alfredo Chuquihuara (Peru), Vice-Chairmen.  Election of a
Vice-Chairman-cum-Rapporteur was postponed until a later date.

The Commission further took note of the report of the Bureau on the
intersessional Bureau meeting, introduced by Antonio Golini (Italy), the Chairman of the thirty-fifth session, which met in Rome on 21 and 22 October 2002, but did not approve the report’s recommendations.  In addition, it adopted its provisional agenda and agreed on its organization of work.

Additional reports were introduced to the Commission by Delia Barcelona and Ann Pawliczko, both of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Other speakers at today’s meeting included the representatives of Morocco (on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China), Greece (on behalf of the European Union), United States, Japan, Brazil, Russian Federation, Pakistan, China, Canada, Switzerland, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Algeria, and India.

In addition, the Commission heard statements from representatives of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and Partners in Population and Development.

Alaka Basu, Professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, also addressed the meeting.

The Commission will meet again on Tuesday, 1 April at 10 a.m. to begin consideration of national experience in population matters:  population, education and development.  At 11:30 a.m., it will hear a keynote address by Paul Demeny, Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, New York.

Background

The Commission on Population and Development met today to open its
thirty-sixth session, which was to focus on the theme "population, education and development”.

During this morning’s session, the Commission was expected to elect officers, adopt the agenda and consider other organizational matters.  It was also expected to begin its general discussion on follow-up actions to the recommendations of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994).

For background information, see Press Release POP/854 of 27 March 2003.

Statements

NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed the importance of the Commission’s work, noting that demographic issues were central to developmental and other work at the United Nations.  The area was given prominence in the Millennium Declaration and also in reform proposals that the Secretary-General had put forward a year ago.  Amongst issues he had identified which needed particular attention from the international community were HIV/AIDS, ageing, and migration.  When those areas did receive the attention they deserved, the Commission would have a central role to play.

In many ways, he said, the Commission’s work followed two tracks.  The first was policy development and how it impacted population issues in the broader term, and the second was programme guidance.  As for policy development, he highlighted strong connections between the themes and agendas of the main conferences held during the 1990s.  Education, for example, was a classic cross-cutting theme, and was a vital ingredient in reaching developmental goals.  It was being recognized more and more that education was crucial for development, especially that of women and girls.

He emphasized the importance of bringing together the different discussions and results of those conferences.  The General Assembly had formed a group to focus on the coordinated and integrated follow-up of various conferences.
The group was expected to submit its report by June, and would be guided by any contributions the Commission wished to make.  The group would also look at the reviews of conferences –- the “plus five” and “plus 10” conferences.  The key focus of the reviews was to see what had stood in the way of conference implementation and what could be done about that, as well as to connect the results of such conferences with agreements made elsewhere.  What the
Millennium Declaration had done was to provide a powerful tool for implementing developmental goals and for coordination at the regional and global level.

THORAYA AHMED OBAID, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said ensuring school enrolment of all children, particularly girls
-- a key goal of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)’s Programme of Action -- was also a key Millennium Development Goal.  Since the 1994 Cairo Conference, health issues, including reproductive health, had become increasingly emphasized in population education programmes and policies.  Still, efforts to meet the goal of universal access to quality reproductive health services by 2015 must be expanded to serve the 860 million illiterate adults and the more than 113 million children, mainly girls, not attending school.

Global population, she said, would rise from 6.3 billion at present to
8.9 billion in 2050, according to the recently released World Population Prospects, a Population Division publication.  This revised estimate was
400 million lower than estimates made in 2000.  The lower population growth rate was due to both increasing mortality in some countries, particularly in
sub-Saharan Africa caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as well as the success of population and family planning and reproductive health programmes.  Strengthening those programmes was critical, she said, adding that UNFPA estimated family planning demands would increase by 40 per cent by 2015.

The UNFPA would undergo a pragmatic and constructive country-by-country analysis of achievements and constraints of population programmes and was currently conducting national field inquiries in developing and developed nations, she said.  She also urged greater financial support for the ICPD’s Programme
of Action, which had declined since the issuance of the last report.

JOSEPH CHAMIE, Director, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, noted that the twentieth century had been the beginning of rapid world population growth.  He questioned whether the twenty-first century would be the end of rapid world population growth, with world population peaking by the end of the century.  Today, the population of the world stood at 6.3 billion, and was growing at a rate of 1.2 per cent per year.  That rate of growth had resulted in an annual increase of 77 million people.  Clearly, the enormous growth of world population that had begun in the middle of the twentieth century was continuing, and the potential for huge population increase had remained high.  According to the medium variant projection, world population would reach 8.9 billion by
mid-century.  At that time, world population would be growing at a rate of
0.3 per cent, yielding an annual increase of 29 million people.

Several years ago, his Division had projected a world population of
9.3 billion by mid-century.  What had accounted for the difference of
400 million people, when one considered today’s projection of 8.9 billion?  The answer could be summarized in four words –- more deaths, fewer births.  About half of the 400 million difference was due to an increase in the number of projected deaths, the majority stemming from higher projected levels of HIV.  The other half of the difference reflected a reduction in projected number of births, primarily as a result of lower expected future fertility levels.  For the first time, the United Nations had projected that future fertility levels in the majority of developing countries would likely fall below 2.1 children per woman, the level needed to ensure the long-term replacement of the population, at some point in the twenty-first century.  By 2050, the medium variant projection expected that
three out of every four countries in less developed regions would be experiencing
below-replacement fertility.

As a result of considerable differences in population growth rates among countries and regions, he continued, redistribution of the world’s population was well under way.  That would bring about a new international population order.
In 1950, the population of Europe, for example, had accounted for about
22 per cent of world population; today, it represented close to half that level, 12 per cent.  By 2050, Europe’s population was expected to make up about
7 per cent of the world.  Another example illustrating the pace of change in the relative size of countries was a comparison of Pakistan and the
Russian Federation.  In 1950, the population of the Russian Federation was more than double the size of Pakistan’s population -– 103 million versus 40 million.  Today, they were roughly the same size, with the Russian Federation at 143 million and Pakistan at 154 million.  By mid-century, However, Pakistan’s population was expected to be triple the size of the Russian Federation’s population
-– 349 million versus 107 million.

Introduction of Reports

LARRY HELIGMAN, Assistant Director of the Population Division, introduced the Secretary-General’s Concise Report on World Population Monitoring
(document E/CN.9/2003/2), highlighting education’s key role in national development, individual well-being and personal fulfillment.  Education was a vital aspect of population change, social development and economic growth for all societies.

The Report noted that there were approximately 2 billion school-age children in the world, more than double the number in 1950.  Ninety per cent of the
school-age population lived in less-developed countries, presenting formidable challenges to their nations.  Some 750 million of them lived in India and China.  The fastest growth, however, was in Africa, where the school-aged population had jumped four-fold during the last 50 years.  The number of school-age children would grow an estimated 350 million by 2015 in less-developed countries.  In contrast, the number would decline in developed countries, including a 40 per cent drop in Europe. 

The document also stressed education’s influence on population variables and processes.  For example, highly educated men and women, were more likely to pursue careers after graduation and marry later in life than less educated people.  Education enabled people to freely and responsibly decide family size and, therefore, more effectively balance work and family responsibilities.  Higher education often led to better health, greater access to health care and lower mortality.  Moreover, highly educated people were more likely to have information and skills needed to migrate both domestically and internationally.

DELIA BARCELONA, of the Reproductive Health Branch, UNFPA, introduced the report on monitoring of population programmes (document E/2003/3).  She said the report focused on progress towards implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development, which had devoted an entire chapter to education.  Education was a fundamental human right, as well as a key factor in reducing poverty and inequality and laying the basis for sustained economic development.  The second Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal access to education by 2015 aimed to ensure that all children, boys and girls, could complete primary schooling.  Countries that had invested in education had seen positive results, and evidence had shown that such a policy led to lower population growth, faster economic development and improved social cohesion.

Since the early 1970s, she continued, population and family life education programmes had succeeded in improving the quality of basic education and the promotion of curricula reforms.  Successful advocacy campaigns had kept education of women and girls high on development agendas.  A special challenge existed in dealing with married adolescent girls, since marriage under the age of 18 was known to be a major disincentive to education.  Education was important for all, but of special significance for girls, since it empowered them in so many ways.  Reproductive health education, for example, could save girls’ lives and protect them from the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Education was a common denominator for handling many of today’s challenges, and could have the longest lasting positive impact on this and subsequent generations. 

ANN PAWLICZKO, Population and Development Branch, UNFPA, began by noting that the goals of the ICPD had not been met.  Preliminary figures had shown that international population assistance and domestic expenditures, which had been increasing steadily but slowly since the ICPD, had both declined in 2001.  Population assistance from donors had decreased from $2.6 billion in 2000 to
$2.3 billion in 2001, which was far short of the ICPD target of $5.7 billion.

Developing countries had continued to mobilize resources for population activities, but funding levels had also declined, she said.  The UNFPA estimated that developing countries had mobilized about $7.1 billion for population in 2001, down from $8.6 billion in 2000.  Developing countries needed to increase their national budgets for population, but many were unable to mobilize the necessary funds to cover the cost of their own population programmes.  They continued to need substantial donor assistance to implement the ICPD Programme of Action.

Mobilization of resources, she continued, was one of the greatest challenges to full implementation of the Programme of Action, which was essential in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.  The HIV/AIDS crisis was far worse than had been anticipated and infant, child and maternal mortality had remained unacceptably high in many parts of the world.  Higher levels of development assistance, including a commitment by donor countries to implement the target of providing official development assistance (ODA) equal to 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP), as well as allocating an increasing level of ODA to population and reproductive health, were essential to eliminate poverty, improve social conditions, raise living standards and protect the environment.

ALAKA BASU, Professor at Cornell University, focused on the relationship between primary schooling and demographic behavior.  She said the Report found that the relationship between schooling and fertility was somewhat ambiguous for the initial years of schooling.  However, schooling’s relationship to child mortality and life expectancy was relatively linear from the start.  Women with some education were expected to become better able to access and understand information important for child survival, and treating common childhood diseases, therefore helping them to acquire child-rearing skills.

Autonomy and empowerment represented the best possible outcomes of transformative education processes, she said.  They were also likely to lead to lower fertility that accompanied female education beyond the first few years.  Still, based on findings in elementary and primary schooling in developing countries, it was unlikely that such education left children, particularly girls, independent and empowered.

MOULAY ABOUTAHIR (Morocco), speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, said the donor community had continued to play a vital role in funding population activities in developing countries.  Some nations, however, which received the bulk of their funding from donors, needed more external assistance to fund their population activities.  However, international financial flows to finance such activities had begun to decline.  That trend was of particular concern, since population activities were becoming increasingly complex in light of the rapid development of globalization.

Education affected all of the variables associated with population and development, he continued.  Developing countries were highly aware of that relationship and had continued to place education high on their list of priorities.

The General Assembly would decide on the structure of the next five-year review of the ICPD, he went on.  The Commission’s 2004 session should be regarded as a regular session reviewing follow-up action of the ICPD, taking stock of what had and had not been achieved.  The Commission might benefit from the horizontal approach in reviewing implementation of the ICPD, selecting cross-cutting issues.  At the current session, the Commission should decide on topics for 2005.  That session should emphasize population, poverty and HIV/AIDS, an extremely urgent topic for the Commission and the United Nations system.

ADAMANTIOS VASSILAKIS (Greece), speaking on behalf of the European Union, said the major challenges concerning the relationship between education and population, particularly in developing countries, began with ending illiteracy and literacy gender disparities, as well as reducing gaps in access to education.  Such access remained a problem and required policy reforms, adequate financing, sustained advocacy and stronger multi-sector partnerships for poverty reduction. 

The European Union supported the objectives of education to achieving sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development.  He added that special attention must be paid to information and communication technologies, or “e-learning”.  All sectors of society, particularly highly disadvantaged groups, should have full access to such technologies. 

All Governments must firmly implement the population objectives set forth during the 1994 Cairo conference and mobilize the necessary funds for population and development programmes, including programmes on sexual and reproductive health and rights.  The European Union’s Development Council felt that the UNFPA’s activities strictly conformed to the ICPD’s Programme of Action.  The Council intended to strengthen its cooperation with the UNFPA and invited other countries to follow suit. 

SICHAN SIV (United States) noted an issue that stood out in the
Secretary-General’s report -– the continuing gap in educational opportunities for girls and women.  School enrolment had increased and the ratio of girls to boys in school had risen, but that ratio still stood at 0.92 for primary school enrolments and 0.89 for secondary school.  There were still 12 million children who were not enrolled in school, and about two thirds of the 850 million illiterate people in the world were women.  Ensuring that girls stayed in and eventually completed primary and secondary school required that educators looked beyond enrolment and addressed larger, contextual issues, such as the impact of gender on educational quality.

He described successful programmes his country had assisted with in the effort to provide universal access to education.  One such programme in Egypt –- the access to primary education and literacy project –- had provided more than
19,000 scholarships to primary school-age children, 95 per cent of whom were girls.  Those children had either never attended or had dropped out of school and would not otherwise be enrolled.  The programme had demonstrated that the removal of significant constraints to female enrolment could yield high returns.  For example, pupils’ regular attendance rates had averaged 96 per cent and the dropout rate was below 1 per cent.  Two thirds of the pupils had scored 80 per cent and above in testing each year.  An assessment of community impact had indicated that most participating households were determined to keep their girls in school.

YOSHIYUKI MOTOMURA (Japan), recognizing the critical role of education in population and development, said human resources development was the foundation of nation-building and was essential for sustainable development in developing countries.  In the past, Japan had repeatedly appealed to the international community for greater education promotion, and had proposed the “United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development” adopted by the General Assembly last year.

Under the Koizumi Initiative, Japan, in cooperation with international organizations, other donor countries and non-governmental organizations, was strengthening education and healthcare assistance to developing countries.  In 2002, Japan began providing $2 billion in education funds over a five-year period to support low-income nations struggling to achieve goals set forth in the Dakar Framework of Action.  It was implementing girl’s education projects in cooperation with non-governmental organizations and education institutions.  Moreover, it had allocated more than $1.8 billion of the $3 billion pledged in 2000 over a
five-year period to fight infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS. 

MARIA LUIZA RIBEIRO VIOTTI (Brazil) said the declining fertility rates and the HIV/AIDS pandemic would impact global population growth for years to come.  Declining fertility rates had been a salient feature of demographics in Brazil, where the annual population growth rate dropped from 2.9 per cent in the 1960s to 1.6 per cent in 2000.  At the root of that sharp decline were greater access to education and information, urbanization, women’s growth in the labour market, and other social, economic and political changes.  Since the Cairo Conference, Brazil had met its goal of universal primary education, slowing student dropout and failure rates, improving overall academic performance and helping to reduce child labour, a high priority of the Brazilian Government.

Brazil had also combined prevention and treatment in the fight against HIV/AIDS, she said.  Education and awareness were crucial in promoting prevention.  So was coordination of the education and health sectors, through STD/AIDS prevention programmes in schools and inclusion of sexuality and drug concerns in primary and secondary school curricula.  Brazil’s experience showed that drug treatment led to effective prevention and kept people living with HIV/AIDS in close contact with health-care providers, and thus, counseling and preventive supplies.

GREGORI OUSTINOV (Russian Federation) said education played a vital role in preventing HIV/AIDS and other dangerous diseases.  He noted that an effective solution to tasks outlined in the Secretary-General’s report to improve teaching and apply a differentiated approach to education were closely linked to efforts to overcome the digital divide.  In that respect, he supported closer links between the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force and the Millennium Goals on education.

Turning to the General Assembly working group on the coordinated and integrated follow-up to United Nations conferences and summits, he said his country supported a flexible approach to review activities of those conferences, with more effective use of existing intergovernmental mechanisms.

ABDUR RASHID KHAN (Pakistan) said his country, the world’s seventh most populous, was a willing signatory of the ICPD Programme of Action but insufficient financial resources had impeded its ability to implement the Programme at the targeted pace.  Since 1994, population growth had fallen 2.1 per cent annually due to changing marriage patterns and a rapid decline in marital fertility.  Contraceptive use had risen from 18 per cent in 1994 to 33 per cent in 2002, and literacy had risen significantly, while fertility had significantly declined during the 1990s.  These factors had reduced demographic pressures hampering socio-economic development, albeit modestly.

Pakistan’s Population Policy, launched last July, aimed to improve the quality of life of all Pakistanis by slowing rapid population growth through high quality and readily accessible reproductive health and family-planning services.  Still, Pakistan and most other developing countries lacked the resources required to fully implement the ICPD agenda.  While Pakistan had increased public investment in education, health and family-planning manifold, donor assistance had yet to match the country’s requirements.  The resource crunch could impede Pakistan’s progress toward socio-economic development and demographic transition.  Donors’ support was needed to sustain efforts to implement the ICPD mandate.

JERROLD HUGUET, of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said that Governments in Asia and the Pacific had made considerable progress in adopting a reproductive health approach, but organizational and financial constraints still hampered the provision of a full range of reproductive health services, especially to adolescents.  The strong focus on reproductive health services meant that inadequate attention had been given to emerging population and development issues, particularly internal and international migration, and population ageing.

The Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference adopted a Plan of Action on Population and Poverty reflecting a strengthened commitment to achieve global and regional goals in such areas as poverty reduction; international migration; internal migration; urbanization; population ageing; gender; reproductive rights; reproductive health; HIV/AIDS; and on data, research and training.  The ESCAP strove to accomplish its goals throughout the vast Asian and Pacific region mainly by building capacity at the national level.  It conducted training courses for population professionals, provided technical assistance, disseminated information and facilitated the exchange of knowledge and experience.

WANG GUOQIANG (China) said that by 2000, the Chinese government had eradicated children’s illiteracy and had achieved access to nine years of compulsory basic education for 85 per cent of the population.  China’s primary education level was now on par with levels in moderately developed nations.  Still, enrolment at the pre-school and senior high school levels remained low.

China had also formulated the 2001-2010 China Women Development Programme to safeguard women’s rights to education and reproductive health care, particularly concerning HIV/AIDS.  The programme guaranteed the right of girls to a nine-year compulsory education; aimed to keep girls’ enrolment in elementary school at
99 per cent and in high school at 75 per cent; sought to increase young women’s literacy rate to 95 per cent; and expanded women’s capabilities in science and culture.

GILBERT LAURIN (Canada) said education was still out of reach for a vast number of people, especially girls.  Access to schooling continued to be particularly difficult for girls, despite the knowledge that investment in their education paid off by delaying the age of marriage, improving their access to family planning, and increasing their productivity and income.  For every additional year of a girl’s primary education, income increased by 10 per cent, both the infant mortality and fertility rates dropped by 10 per cent, and agricultural productivity rose by at least 10 per cent.

Equally relevant, he said, were the important links between education and HIV/AIDS.  Education played a key role in preventing HIV/AIDS and mitigating its effects on individuals, families and communities.  Particularly worrisome was the epidemic’s impact on women, who were often less able to choose to avoid high-risk behaviours.  Once HIV affected a household, a woman’s burden for childcare,
health care and income generation significantly increased.  Priority must be given to developing and improving the integration of reproductive health education programmes into all levels of education, to ensure that youth were given the necessary knowledge to prepare for healthy, productive lives, free of disease and harmful practices, guided by international consensus that had developed and been reflected in the ICPD Programme of Action.

JACQUES MARTIN (Switzerland) noted the progress made in population and development matters since the 1994 Cairo Conference, such as new approaches in family planning that emphasized women’s and children’s health, more realistic national strategies for education and the status of women, and responsible sexual education.  Switzerland lauded the efforts of development agencies to achieve the population and development aspects of the Millennium Development Goals.

Switzerland was increasingly concerned with human development, focusing more closely on empowering individuals and institutions through partnerships, he said.  Health concerns were also a top priority, with increased emphasis placed on equity.  Such efforts had significantly contributed to achieving the Cairo objectives, marked by significant effects on the birth rate and higher standards of living.  However, this success was not occurring in all nations.  Global resources received for population and development were far lower than those pledged in Cairo.  Annual Swiss expenditures for population and development had risen from 10 million Swiss francs in 1990 to 30 million in 2003.

PRIJONO TJIPTOHERJANTO (Indonesia) said education was directly linked to all aspects of socio-economic development, including population growth, illiteracy, gender issues, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, and human rights.
A major challenge for the international community was to translate the right of every child to free, basic and compulsory education into reality.  Another challenge was in the area of population growth.  The relationship between education and population growth was strongly correlated to levels of fertility, morbidity and mortality.  Increases in educational levels, particularly for women, were increasingly recognized as having a direct impact on population growth rates.

Developing countries were further challenged by a lack of financial resources in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action, he said.  The Cairo target of mobilizing $17 billion by the year 2000 had fallen far short of the mark.  Actions by developing countries had not been matched by assistance from developed countries.  The international community must reverse that negative trend and revitalize the flow of resources.  There was a critical need to forge dynamic partnerships based on mutual interests, benefits and shared responsibilities.

AZANAW TADESSE ABREHA (Ethiopia) noted progress by member States toward the Millennium Development Goals of attaining universal primary education and eliminating gender disparity by 2015.  Still, as of 2000, an estimated
115 million children of primary school age were not receiving formal education.
If present trends continued, 57 countries would fall short of meeting the universal primary education goal.  Strengthened and concerted efforts were needed to make education a top priority in sustainable development.

He noted that, albeit modest, resources allocated for the ICPD’s population and development programmes had increased steadily since 2000.  However, the preliminary figure for 2001 was not equally encouraging.  This was particularly worrisome to Africa’s least developed countries, where competition for resources by other developmental concerns was high and where illiteracy and HIV/AIDS rates were high.  The international community should redouble its efforts to enable developing nations, particularly least developed countries, to achieve the ICPD’s goals.

TIMOTHEE GANDAHO, Executive Director of Partners in Population and Development, said his organization was an intergovernmental alliance consisting of 19 developing countries.  The group aimed to expand and improve South-South collaboration in the fields of family planning and reproductive health.  Each partner country planned to strengthen institutional capacity to undertake
South-South exchange activities, and to rapidly expand the number of South-South training and consultative programmes.  The Partners’ Secretariat would provide a central point for networking among Partners, and for identifying opportunities for South-South exchanges and sources of financial support.

The four key areas Partners had chosen for action were providing integrated family-planning and reproductive-health services; addressing issues of adolescent sexual and reproductive health; significant reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity; and effective reduction and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.  Policy dialogue, exchange of information, training and research were the four main modalities used by the Partners in promoting and implementing its programme priorities.

RACHIDA BENKHELIL (Algeria) said elementary education, essential for all children, particularly girls, was a major factor in population and development strategies.  Nations must work to diversify education, promoting schooling particularly in rural areas and enabling girls to enter into traditionally
male-dominated fields such as science and technology.  Stereotyping, in which girls are relegated to study the humanities or natural sciences, must end, she said, noting that female participation in technical fields was a mere 25 per cent.

She also called for greater teacher-training programmes, as well as enhanced access to information and communication technologies.  While the Cairo consensus could not be renegotiated, it could be adapted to suit emerging trends in population and development, particularly concerning financial resources.
The upcoming General Assembly should address the current shortfall of funds for

implementation of the ICPD’s Programme of Action, as illustrated by the report issued earlier in the session.

SUJATHA RAO (India) said the Secretary-General’s reports clearly illustrated the link between education and sustainable development, in which education contributed to reductions in fertility, morbidity and mortality rates, as well as women’s empowerment and greater access to information.  Links between education, expanding markets and income, and reduced fertility rates were significant for countries like India.  Moreover, education also contributed to development, understanding and solidarity among individuals and nations.

The Secretary-General’s report recognized the need to introduce on occasion new approaches in population and development.  Such curriculum reform, she said, emphasized secular values, gender equality, knowledge, understanding and respect for others’ cultural beliefs nationally and internationally.

She noted with regret that donor nations had, by and large, not kept their commitment to finance one third of the total projected cost of the Cairo Programme of Action, while developing nations had in fact funded their share – two thirds
–- of projects through domestic resources.  Concerned about the impact of this shortfall on country programmes, she called on donors to fulfill their commitments.

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