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"
April 1994
Number 14
Newsletter of the International Conference on Population and
Development
Cairo, Egypt, 5-13 September 1994
STATEMENT OF DR. SADIK AT PREPCOM PRESS CONFERENCE
ICPD Secretary-General Dr. Nafis Sadik delivered the following
remarks at the start of her UN Headquarters press conference on 4
April, opening day of the third session of the Conference
Preparatory Committee.
The third and final meeting of the Preparatory Committee for
ICPD will take place over the next three weeks. This meeting is the
culmination of an exhaustive three-year process of regional
conferences, national activities, expert group meetings, round
tables on a variety of related subjects, and a lot of hard work by
Governments and NGOs throughout the world.
We meet at a time when, driven by unprecedented growth in
human numbers and wasteful consumption, many of the basic resources
upon which future generations will depend for their survival are
being depleted, when environmental pollution is intensifying and
when widespread poverty and social and economic inequality
persists.
However, we also meet during a time of widespread agreement
about the importance of population and about the need to focus on
the individual and on individual choice as the keystone to
balancing population and resources.
There is now an international consensus that we should invest
in people, especially in women, and let them make the choices about
family size by providing them with high quality family planning
programmes. This approach will eliminate hundreds of thousands of
maternal deaths each year. At the same time, it will slow the rapid
population growth that is making it difficult for many developing
countries to provide their growing numbers with food, shelter,
employment, education and health.
The efforts of nations and the international community have
already met with great success. Average fertility rates in
developing countries, where almost all population growth is
occurring, have declined from between six to seven children in the
1960s to three to four today. Currently, about 55 per cent of
couples and individuals in developing countries use some method of
family planning, a nearly five-fold increase since the mid-1960s.
However, there is still much to do. World population today is
5.7 billion. It will reach either 7.27 billion or 7.92 billion by
the year 2015, depending on what we do over the next two decades.
That's a difference of 660 million people, nearly equivalent to the
current population of Africa.
The PrepCom has before it a draft Programme of Action that
contains a set of 20-year goals in the areas of mortality reduction
and universal availability of and accessibility to family planning
information and services, and completion of at least primary
education, especially for girls. What makes us optimistic about
what can be accomplished over the next 20 years are the successes
that many countries have made in expanding access to reproductive
health care, lowering death rates, bringing family planning
information and services and raising education and income levels,
including among women.
However, the full range of modern family planning methods
still remains unavailable to at least 350 million couples. Surveys
indicate that approximately 120 million additional women would use
a modern family planning method if information and services were
more available.
Women throughout the world, even in cultures where there are
large families, want to have fewer children. Women want high
quality reproductive health care which includes not only family
planning information and services, but also pre-natal, and post-
natal care, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS
and referrals for complications. Meeting unmet demand for family
planning and providing high quality reproductive care are part of
the 20-year Goals.
The cost for the proposed population activities is reasonable,
considering what is at stake -- about $13 billion per year by the
year 2000. We estimate that international donors would need to
provide about one third of the resources, or $4.4 billion annually
by the year 2000, approximately four times the current level of
their assistance. The developing countries themselves would
continue to be the principal supporter of family planning
programmes (75 per cent in 1990). The Programme of Action calls for
a strong follow up and monitoring system to keep the goals on
track.
I am encouraged by the recent pledges of Japan and the United
States. Japan has pledged $1 billion over the next seven years. The
United States, which promises to provide approximately $585 million
in 1995, has said it will attempt to bring its commitment up to
$1.2 billion annually by the year 2000 and will campaign to
encourage other donors to increase their contributions. I am
hopeful that as one outcome of the Cairo Conference, other donors
will follow the lead of Japan and the United States.
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For printed or electronic copies of the "ICPD 94" newsletter, in
English, French or Spanish, or further information, please contact:
ICPD Secretariat 220 E. 42nd Street, 22nd floor
New York, N.Y. 10017, USA
Tel: (212) 297-5244/5245
Media contact: (212) 297-5023/5030 or 5279
Fax: (212) 297-5250
E-mail: ryanw@unfpa.org or icpd@igc.apc.org
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