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", No. 15
May 1994
Newsletter of the International Conference on Population and
Development
Cairo, Egypt, 5-13 September 1994
IMF/WORLD BANK GOVERNING BOARDS TAKE UP POPULATION ISSUES
On 26 April, Dr. Nafis Sadik, UNFPA Executive Director and
Secretary-General of ICPD, spoke before the 48th Meeting of the
International Monetary Fund/World Bank Development Committee in
Washington, D.C. It was the first time the head of a UN agency had
addressed the joint ministerial committee, comprised of the Boards
of Governors of the Bank and the Fund.
Finance ministers from 24 countries attended the meeting,
which focused on resource flows to developing countries,
population, international migration and trade. Rudolf Holmes,
Colombia's Minister of Finance and Public Credit, chaired the
meeting. World Bank President Lewis Preston and IMF Managing
Director Michael Camdessus spoke briefly abut the world economic
situation and the transfer of resources to developing countries.
Mr. Camdessus emphasized the need for international assistance for
effective population and family planning programmes.
Dr. Sadik's statement emphasized two themes: family planning
programmes make an overall improvement in people's quality of life,
and are therefore a good investment; and fertility decline usually
precedes sustained economic growth. She cited the success of family
planning programmes in a number of developing countries.
"Quite often these programmes have as much to do with
intangibles such as education and raising the status of women as
with family planning per se", she noted. "Their end result is to
give all people, women and men, choice in one very important area
of their lives; the decision to have or not have children. One
consequence has invariably been smaller, healthier families."
Emphasizing the need for increased international support to
implement the 20-year Programme of Action which had just been
discussed at the third session of the ICPD Preparatory Committee,
Dr. Sadik appealed to the assembled finance ministers to redouble
their countries' support for population programmes.
"The 20-year Programme of Action which I hope will be adopted
in Cairo will require substantially increased investments in the
near term, but the increases pale into insignificance compared with
their certain benefits. The resources needed are not very large.
Currently over U.S. $5 billion is used for national population
programmes world-wide. It is estimated that this needs to be
increased to $17 billion by the year 2000 and $21.7 billion by 2015
to meet future requirements of population programmes. Two thirds of
this total will come from developing countries and one third of the
resources will be from the international community.
"Benefits can be measured in terms of longer life expectancy,
lower demand for health and education services, reduced pressure on
the job market, reduced economic hardship and greater social
stability. Demand for housing, energy and utilities will rise, as
will demands for food; but they will rise with the growth of
prosperity, not with the growth of numbers. With slower and more
balanced population growth, the ability of each country to meet
these additional demands will also improve, and the world as a
whole will have time to adapt to the needs of larger numbers."
Statements by a number of the ministers (those of Botswana,
Canada, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Morocco, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States)
emphasized the need for international support to developing
countries' efforts to strengthen population programmes and
eradicate poverty.
In a communiqué, the ministers stated that "an integrated
population policy in developing countries must recognize the links
between economic growth, population, poverty reduction, health,
investment in human resources, and environmental degradation." They
cited three objectives as deserving special attention at ICPD:
improvements in primary school enrolment in low-income countries;
improved access to family planning and related health services; and
reductions in maternal and child mortality in developing countries.
The ministers expressed the hope that many bilateral donors
would be able to increase the share of aid budgets allocated to
population programmes from the current average of 1.25 per cent.
They welcomed the World Bank's "readiness to respond rapidly to
requests for more assistance" in the population field.
Regarding international migration, the statement called for
more policy-oriented research into its social, political and
financial consequences for countries of both origin and
destination.
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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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