UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
|
| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
|
"ICPD 94"
November-December 1993
Number 10
Newsletter of the International Conference on Population and
Development, Cairo, Egypt, 5-13 September 1994
UN DELEGATIONS COMMENT ON DOCUMENT OUTLINE, CONFERENCE PRIORITIES
Statements by more than 40 delegates at a United Nations
debate on the International Conference on Population and
Development have provided the ICPD Secretariat with important
guidance for preparing a full version of the draft final Conference
document.
The delegates' comments on the annotated outline of the
document came during three sessions of the General Assembly's
Second Committee (Economic and Financial) on 4 and 5 November.
Meanwhile, more than 40 non-governmental organizations have sent in
their observations so far.
ICPD Secretary-General Dr. Nafis Sadik, in her opening
remarks, said, "We need your assessment to fulfil a ... task we
have been given by the Preparatory Committee and ECOSOC -- to
prepare by February 1994 the first draft of the final substantive
document of the Conference, taking into account the views expressed
by participants during the Second Session of the Preparatory
Committee and the 48th session of the General Assembly.
"To meet that deadline, we must finalize our work on the draft
by 1 January ...."
The conference must stress the interrelationships between
population and sustainable development, she reminded the committee.
POPULATION MUST BE CENTRAL
But she added: "We must keep firmly in our minds the
centrality of population issues as we prepare for Cairo. I would
encourage you, as you address each chapter and sub-chapter, to keep
asking how each issue and challenge ties into population and vice
versa."
Many delegates, some of whom spoke on behalf of regional
groups, stressed that the 1994 document should highlight methods of
implementing policies, taking into account different regional
characteristics. Nepal said the link between population and
development had already been identified at the 1974 Bucharest
Conference but had not been adequately treated.
The Group of 77 called on the international community to
support the efforts of the developing countries to incorporate
population issues into their development policies. Colombia,
speaking for the group, said this support should be based on a full
understanding of the changing economics, politics and cultures of
the developing world.
The document should recommend ways to improve knowledge of the
relationships among population, environment and development, the
European Community said. It also should ensure that the choice of
the number of children remains a basic human right for the couple
and the individual.
Chile, speaking for several countries in Central and South
America, pointed out the need to reaffirm political support for
population policies and to address the questions raised by
international migration.
Tunisia, representing the Maghreb countries -- Algeria, Libya,
Mauritania and Morocco and itself -- suggested strengthening the
outline's references to technology transfer. It also recommended
protecting the rights of those who migrate from their countries, as
well as the rights of victims of "barbaric practices", such as the
people of Bosnia.
The annotated outline said the preamble would include
"linkages between population, resource use, consumption,
environmental impact and repercussions on the quality of life for
present and future generations." China recommended making these
relationships more explicit by referring to "alleviating"
population pressure, "eliminating" poverty, "developing" the
economy and "protecting" the environment. The right to social and
economic development should also be included, it said.
UN members of the South Pacific Forum had drawn up positions
in regional meetings that were summed up in the Communiqu_ of the
South Pacific Forum and the Port Vila Declaration on Population and
Sustainable Development, New Zealand said. The Port Vila
Declaration said population issues cannot be separated from the
issue of improving the social, economic, political and legal status
of women.
UN members of the Forum are Australia, Micronesia, Fiji,
Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon
Islands and Vanuatu.
The 12 members of the Caribbean Community _ Barbados, Bahamas,
Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis,
St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago
_ also said empowering women was essential in achieving population
objectives, sustained economic growth and sustainable development.
The Nordic countries said the empowerment of women must be
championed in its own right. Sweden said the Nordic countries also
wanted to see more strength and clarity in the document's chapters
on adolescents.
The Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and
Sweden -- also recommended that where national population goals
were adopted they should be linked to the availability of
educational, child care, reproductive health and other social
services.
The United States said the document should state clearly that
stabilizing the world's population underlies and mutually
reinforces all other goals, and that women's control over
child-bearing is fundamental to achieving full gender equality. The
section on family planning should be expanded to encompass
currently available methods of contraception, AIDS prevention, the
needs of adolescents, safe abortion and other pregnancy- related
services.
ICPD host country Egypt recommended elaborating the impact of
consumption patterns on population, sustained economic growth and
sustainable development. Giving an example of what might be taken
into account, Egypt said the overall consumption of a hypothetical
developed country of 28 million people would be "a little more than
or the same as over 650 million people on the entire continent of
Africa."
Other linkages, such as those between poverty reduction and
structural adjustment programmes, should also be examined, Egypt
said.
Russia, Poland and Ukraine each said that countries in
transition had special problems that ICPD should address. Russia
cited not only overall depopulation because of low birth rates but
also a significant "brain drain."
UNESCO announced that in collaboration with UNFPA and UNICEF,
it was convening a meeting of nine very populous developing
countries to discuss providing universal primary education,
combating high population growth and formulating strategies for
development. The countries are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
NGO PRESENTATION
Official discussions were suspended to hear from the head of
the NGO Planning Committee for the ICPD, former Barbadian Health
Minister Billie Miller. She said the committee had distributed
copies of the draft outline to 1,500 organizations world-wide.
The committee is coordinating the NGO Forum in Cairo, which
Ms. Miller said could attract as many as 10,000 participants.
After summing up the discussion, Dr. Sadik welcomed
suggestions that the March 1995 Social Summit and the September
1995 Women's Conference take the recommendations of the ICPD
document into account.
***
SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS
In her concluding remarks to the Second Committee, Dr. Sadik
summed up the main points made in the two-day debate:
The final document should:
* stress the interrelationships between population,
sustained economic growth and sustainable devel-opment, but centre
on population;
* emphasize that the interests and rights of individuals
must be central in all population and development efforts; that
women's needs and freedom of choice must be extended in all
population programmes; and that the empowerment of women in society
must be championed in its own right;
* give more attention to youth and adolescents;
* stress the mutual responsibilities of developed and
developing countries in population and environment, and give more
attention to issue of consumption patterns and lifestyles;
* spell out the role of NGOs;
* reflect the perspective and needs of countries
in-transition; and
* pay further attention to the issue of indigenous peoples.
In addition, Dr. Sadik stated, parts II and III should be more
in line with each other. Recommendations should be clear, concise,
practical and action-oriented. Various proposals for costing the
recommended activities will be considered.
The proposed goals are not demographic targets or quotas, she
said. Rather, they focus on the needs of individuals and society's
responsibility to protect them. Experts believe that attaining
these goals will result in a decline in population growth rates.
Dr. Sadik said that informal consultations before PrepCom III
"will not be for the purpose of negotiating the final draft. That
is the job of PrepCom III."
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