UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
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| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
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Asia and Pacific Countries Map Out Population/Development Strategies The Fourth Asian and Pacific Population Conference, organized by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and UNFPA, concluded with the adoption of the "Bali Declaration", which urged countries of the region to "make a firm political and financial commitment to fully incorporate population and environmental concerns into all national efforts to achieve sustainable development." The nine-day conference, held in Denpasar (Bali), Indonesia, from 19 to 27 August 1992, included a senior officials meeting followed by a ministerial meeting. The Conference, which reviewed the region's current population situation, will provide Governments with policy guidelines for population and sustainable development into the next century. Indonesia's President Soeharto opened the two-day ministerial-level segment of the Conference. He said development "must always take into account its relations with population and the environment" and "cannot be carried out without taking into consideration the condition of society at present and in the future. It must be sustainable development from one generation to the next." Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of UNFPA and Secretary-General of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, stressed the importance of family planning in helping to reduce high population growth rates in the region. Family planning had been a great success in the region, she said, but there was still a great unmet need for services, with an estimated 240 million people in the region lacking access to family planning services. Commenting on the Bali Declaration, ESCAP Executive Secretary Rafeeuddin Ahmed said the decisions taken by the Conference had put a strong and unmistakable emphasis on poverty alleviation, the interaction between population, the environment and consumption, and the strategic linkages between population and sustainable development.