EXPERTS EXAMINE EUROPE’S POPULATION, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CONCERNS

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 12 January (UNFPA) -- More than 350 population and reproductive health experts started a discussion here today on demographic, health and social issues critical to Europe, North America and the former Soviet republics.  Participants in the three-day European Population Forum will examine policies and trends in migration, ageing, fertility and mortality; and sexual and reproductive health and rights, particularly in European countries in transition.

The Forum leads off a year of regional and global activities commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Cairo International Conference for Population and Development (ICPD), where 179 governments affirmed the centrality of population and reproductive health concerns to the development agenda.  The event, hosted by the Swiss Government, is co-organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Speaking at the Forum’s opening session, UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said the Cairo Programme of Action “changed the international debate about population from human numbers to human beings” and helped governments “move away from a narrow focus on family planning to a new concept of sexual and reproductive health throughout the life cycle”.

“In many ways, the Cairo agreement anticipated the Millennium Development Goals adopted six years later”, she added.  “Enabling people to choose their family size will slow the rapid population growth that undermines poverty reduction efforts in the world’s poorest countries.  Better reproductive health information and services are critical to reducing maternal and child mortality and halting HIV/AIDS.  Preventing unwanted pregnancies helps keep girls in school, advancing women’s empowerment.”

Declaring “Europe is currently in a unique epoch in its population history”, Brigita Schmögnerová, UNECE Executive Secretary, added, “Europe is moving into a new demographic regime”.  Key policy challenges, she noted, are posed by a decrease in working-age populations and acceleration of ageing in many European countries due to low fertility and declining mortality.

Ambassador Walter Fust, Director-General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said he hoped the Forum’s deliberations would “be used to turn ideas into policies, strategies and action plans susceptible to improve the lot of poor populations in all countries of the UNECE region”.

Poul Nielson, the European Union’s Development Commissioner, said that sexual and reproductive health services are key to decreasing maternal mortality rates and HIV infections, and that without these services, “poverty reduction will not be possible”.  He also noted that the low level of donor assistance, the prevalence of HIV and an insufficient global political commitment “are hampering the achievement of the Cairo goals, and costing thousand of lives”.

The Forum’s first-day panels focused on:

-- Population and development in Europe during the last decade; and

-- Global population and development trends: the European view.

Sessions on the second and third days will deal with:

-- Childbearing and parenting in low-fertility countries:  enabling choices;

-- Morbidity, mortality and reproductive health:  facing challenges in transition countries;

-- International migration:  promoting management and integration; and

-- Policy challenges of Europe’s demographic changes:  crosscutting issues.

Participants in the Forum include international professionals and practitioners from the social, demographic and economic fields, as well as from executive and legislative branches of governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector in Europe and North America.

The UNFPA is the world’s largest multilateral source of population assistance, providing support to developing countries, at their request, to meet reproductive health needs, collect and analyse population data and to integrate population and development strategies into national, regional and global planning.

More information about the Forum, including the agenda and background papers, is available at www.unece.org/ead/pau/epf.

Further information about population issues, reproductive health and the ICPD can be found at www.unfpa.org.

For yet more information, contact:  William A. Ryan, mobile: +1 646-226-6104, e-mail: ryanw@unfpa.org; or Omar Gharzeddine, tel.: +41-22-917-7321, e-mail: gharzeddine@unfpa.org.

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