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) |
|
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This newsletter is being made available by the Population Information
Network (POPIN) of the United Nations Population Division (DESIPA), in
collaboration with Population Communication International. For further
information please contact Patrice_Newman@together.org
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INTERNATIONAL DATELINE
A Population and Development News and Information Service
FEBRUARY WORLD POPULATION UPDATE:
5,752,800,000 (Population Reference
Bureau )
FEBRUARY 1996
THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT (HDR) TURNS ITS
PENETRATING EYE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD in its most
recent issue. Published by the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP), the 1995 report features six chapters of analysis on gender
and development issues interspersed with numerous boxes, tables and
other statistical presentations--the contents of which, according
to UNDP's Administrator James Gustave Speth, are "a major
indictment of the continuing discrimination against women in most
societies." Speth notes that rising disparities both within and
between nations have accompanied the "robust" pace of development
around the world over the last five years, and asserts that "gender
disparity" is the most persistent of these inequalities. "If
development is meant to widen opportunities for all people," says
Speth, "then continuing the exclusion of women from many
opportunities of life totally warps the process of development."
EVERY YEAR, WOMEN MAKE AN INVISIBLE CONTRIBUTION OF ELEVEN
TRILLION U.S. DOLLARS TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, the UNDP report says,
counting both unpaid work and the underpayment of women's work at
prevailing market prices. This "undervaluation" of women's work
not only undermines their purchasing power, says the 1995 HDR, but
also reduces their already low social status and affects their
ability to own property and use credit. Mahbub ul Haq, the
principal author of the report, says that, "if women's work were
accurately reflected in national statistics, it would shatter the
myth that men are the main breadwinners of the world." The UNDP
report finds that women work longer hours than men in almost every
country, including both paid and unpaid duties. In developing
countries, women do approximately 53% of all work and spend two-
thirds of their time in unpaid labor--men, on the other hand, spend
less than one-quarter of their work time on unremunerated
activities. In industrialized countries, women do an average of
51% of the total work, and--like their counterparts in the
developing world--perform about two-thirds of their total labor
without pay. Men in industrialized countries are compensated for
two-thirds of their work.
BESIDES THE USUAL "HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX" (HDI) RANKING OF
COUNTRIES, UNDP USES TWO NEW GENDER-RELATED INDEXES to gauge
women's position in societies. The "Gender-related Development
Index" (GDI) measures gender equality in basic human capabilities,
while the "Gender Empowerment Measure" (GEM) ascertains gender
equality in economic and political opportunities. The 1995 report
ranks 130 countries in the GDI column using the same variables that
determine the HDI rankings--life expectancy, educational attainment
and adjusted real income. But for the GDI rankings, country-
figures are corrected to reflect the gaps in each area between
women and men. The four Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland,
Norway and Denmark score highest on the GDI list, but several
developing countries and areas also do well. Barbados is ranked
number 11, Hong Kong number 17, the Bahamas-26, Singapore-28,
Uruguay-32, and Thailand-33. A diverse group of countries have
much higher GDI than HDI ranks--reflecting a more equal standing
between men and women. These include Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Barbados,
Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Jamaica and Cuba. Countries whose
GDI ranks are much lower than their HDI positions--reflecting great
disparities between women and men in their societies--include
Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, several Arab states, Canada,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain.
THE OTHER NEW INDEX, THE "GENDER EMPOWERMENT MEASURE" (GEM),
ASSESSES WOMEN'S PROGRESS IN THREE VARIABLES--political decision-
making (measured by women's share of parliamentary seats); access
to professional opportunities (measured by women's share of
administrative, managerial, professional and technical positions),
and earning power (measured by access to both jobs and wages). Out
of a possible high score of 1.0, the UNDP report says that only
nine countries in the world have GEM values above 0.6 (Sweden,
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Netherlands, USA,
and Austria)--compared with 66 countries with a GDI (gender-related
development index) value above 0.6. And on the bottom end, 39
countries are ranked below 0.3 in GEM, while only 13 countries are
that low in GDI. The UNDP report notes that in no country of the
world are women treated the same as men, even the four Nordic
countries--Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark--where women have
crossed the 30% threshold for participation in political, economic
and professional spheres. But the GEM rankings show that some
developing countries outperform much richer industrial countries in
these areas: Barbados, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba
rank higher than Switzerland, Hungary, United Kingdom, Spain and
France, among others. Among industrialized nations, there are also
great differences between the GDI and the GEM within certain
countries. Greece, for instance, has a GDI of 0.825, but a GEM of
only 0.343--with women holding only 6% of the seats in parliament
and 10% of the country's administrative and managerial positions.
The figures of France and Japan tell similar stories.
GENDER INEQUALITY HAS LESS TO DO WITH NATIONAL INCOME THAN
WITH A LACK OF POLITICAL COMMITMENT, says the 1995 HDR, noting that
several of the world's poor nations have been very effective in
lifting female literacy rates. Adult literacy in general has
doubled in sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades, according
to UNDP. And with strong political commitments, China, Sri Lanka
and Zimbabwe have raised adult women's literacy to 70% or more
while several richer countries--notably in the Arab world--lag
behind. In East Asia, a 19% average of female representation in
parliaments is more than one and a half times that of industrial
countries. And when Gender-related Development Index figures are
compared, China comes out ten places above Saudi Arabia--though its
per capita income is only a fifth as high, Thailand outranks Spain
with less than half the real per capita income, and Poland sits
fifty places above Syria--though the two countries have about the
same real income.
THE 1995 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT IDENTIFIES A FIVE-POINT
STRATEGY for accelerating progress in eliminating gender
disparities around the world.
1. National and international efforts must be mobilized to
win legal equality within a defined period--say, the next
ten years. The outline presented for achieving this
objective includes: a campaign for the unconditional
ratification of the "Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women" (CEDAW);
strengthened monitoring of CEDAW's implementation within
the U.N. system; an international non-governmental
organization to report on key aspects of legal
discrimination and progress on gender-related targets;
the organization of legal professionals to help win legal
equality; facilitating legal literacy and access to legal
systems; and declaring violence against women as a weapon
of war to be a war crime, punishable by an international
tribunal.
2. Many economic and institutional arrangements may need
revamping to extend more choices to women and men in the
workplace. For example, HDR 1995 says, encouraging men
to participate in family care through increased
acceptance and support of parental leave and job
security; flexible work schedules that would permit
combining a career with fulfilling family commitments;
expanding the concept of public services beyond education
and health to child care; changing tax and social
security incentives to accommodate family structures that
differ from the one-supporter, two-adult family; and
changing laws on property, inheritance and divorce to
reflect women's role in family financial support. The
UNDP report says that governments, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), and the business community must all
participate in mobilizing such change.
3. A critical 30% threshold should be regarded as a minimum
share of decision-making positions held by women at the
national level. HDR 1995 reports that in parliamentary
or cabinet representation only Denmark, Finland, the
Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Sweden are over this
threshold so far, and recommends that each nation
identify a firm timetable for crossing the 30% mark in at
least some key areas of decision-making. The report
notes that the 30% level should be seen as a minimum
target, not the ultimate goal.
4. Key programs should embrace universal female education,
improved reproductive health and more credit for women.
The UNDP report says that an analysis of experience shows
that in these three critical areas, women face barriers
that can only be overcome through determined policy
action. The report notes that the returns from educating
girls have few parallels for women, families and
communities; that reproductive choice is essential for
women to control their life choices; and that access to
productive resources is critical to enhancing women's
economic choices.
5. National and international efforts should target programs
that enable people, particularly women, to gain greater
access to economic and political opportunities. For
example, the HDR says, providing: basic social services
for all, especially in developing countries, including
basic education, primary health care, safe drinking
water, family planning services and nutrition programs
for the most deprived; reproductive health care--though
included in basic social services, the UNDP authors say
reproductive health care needs to be supplemented with
additional resources; credit for poor people, which may
mean making special institutional arrangements to extend
credit to people who have only their enterprise to offer
as collateral; sustainable livelihood for all, including
not only "remunerative employment opportunities," but
self-employment schemes, microenterprises and
opportunities for the poor to enter the market; targeted
programs for poverty reduction, especially for the
poorest groups including "landless peasants, urban slum
dwellers, deprived ethnic minorities, and economically
disenfranchised women;" and capacity building and
empowerment, including decentralizing in public and
private sectors and among grass-roots organizations so
that "disenfranchised groups can participate in designing
and implementing new projects and programs."
SINCE 1990, UNITED NATIONS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORTS HAVE
CHRONICLED THE CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF NATIONS, especially in
evaluating how well they provide their citizens with "the basic
capabilities to participate in and contribute to society."
According to UNDP--creator of the Human Development Index--the
factors to gauge in assessing such capabilities include the ability
to lead a long and healthy life, the ability to be knowledgeable,
and the ability to have access to the resources needed for a decent
standard of living. The first HDR developed the concept of human
development and its measurement, and explored the relationship
between economic growth and human development. The report produced
in 1991 concluded that lack of political will--not just lack of
financial resources--is responsible for neglecting the improvement
or provision of basic standards of living. The 1992 report
concluded that trade and financial opportunities in international
markets are needed even more than aid to enhance human development
initiatives in developing countries. The 1993 report assessed how
much people are actually able to participate in the decisions and
processes that shape their lives. And the 1994 report identified
the profound policy changes that would be required in both national
and global management if a new concept of human security were to be
addressed--one that would include: the security of people in their
homes, in their jobs, in their communities and in their
environments.
The 1995 Human Development Report is published by Oxford
University Press and is available in ten other languages besides
English: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese,
Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The cost is US$18.95.
For ordering information in all languages, contact: United Nations
Development Program, One United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017,
USA.
(Human Development Report 1995, August 1995, United Nations
Development Program, New York)
* * * * *
PERUVIAN PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI ANNOUNCED AN AGGRESSIVE
CAMPAIGN TO PROVIDE FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES to low-income
Peruvians as part of his government's program to fight poverty.
The announcement, made during his second term inaugural speech, set
off alarms within the Church hierarchy. The Peruvian Bishops
conference then issued a letter saying that "artificial"
contraception is "morally unacceptable." This is the second time
that Fujimori has raised the issue of family planning as president.
Although Peru is 90 percent Roman Catholic, a 1994 poll showed that
many Peruvians support Fujimori's position on family planning.
(Populi, September 1995, United Nations Population Fund, New
York)
* * * * *
WITHIN JUST 15 YEARS, THE ROCKETING DEMAND FOR ENERGY--
PARTICULARLY IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES--will trigger a rising
outpouring of carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases
responsible for global warming. That prediction is contained in
the annual World Energy Outlook report, published by the Paris-
based International Energy Agency (IEA) of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The agency predicts
that worldwide energy demands will increase at an annual rate of
between 1.7 and 2.1 percent until the year 2010. And because
fossil fuels will still account for 90 percent of the world's
energy supplies by 2010, global carbon dioxide emissions will
increase as much as 42 percent over today's rates. All regions of
the world except eastern Europe will register a rise in carbon
dioxide emissions, but developing countries will register the
biggest increase, according to the IEA report. Between 1990 and
2010, China and India alone will account for a larger increase in
emissions than all the world's major industrialized countries
combined.
WORLD DEMAND FOR OIL IS EXPECTED TO RISE BY ABOUT TWENTY-FIVE
PERCENT BY 2010 and there will also be a shift in energy
consumption patterns, according to the IEA. By 2010, the major
industrialized countries will consume less than half the world's
energy, compared with about 55 percent presently. These same
countries will also become more dependent on imported oil--
especially the U.S., whose oil import dependency could rise from 50
percent to 70 percent. Japan will remain almost entirely dependent
on foreign-produced fossil fuels, says the IEA report. The current
world demand for oil is approximately 68 million barrels a day
(Financial Times, 25 April 1995, London)
* * * * *
FOR WOMEN USING NEWER VERSIONS OF COMBINED ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE
PILLS, THE RISK OF BLOOD CLOTS in the veins may be twice that of
older pills. Combined oral contraceptives contain both an estrogen
and progestogen. Two recent World Health Organization (WHO) papers
published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, said that the
danger of venous thromboembolism (VTE)--the formation of blood
clots in the veins--may double with the use of combined oral
contraceptive pills that contain two newer progestogens:
desogestrel and gestodene. According to the research findings,
women with a high body weight or a history of high blood pressure
in pregnancy carry a slightly higher risk of VTE, starting within
the first months of using combined oral contraceptives and ending
within a few months of discontinuing the pills.
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, A STUDY ANALYZING THE RISKS PRESENTED
BY THE NEWER COMBINED PILLS found that three to four VTE cases a
year could be expected per 100,000 healthy, reproductive-age women
who do not use oral contraceptives. Among women using the older
pill formula, the number of cases of the disease rises to 10; and
with the newer combination pills, the risk of VTE disease doubles
to 20. However, WHO points out that worldwide, the risk of VTE
from all causes among women is relatively low, and any excess risk
from oral contraceptives affects a relatively small number of
women. "In fact," concludes study coordinator Dr. Neil Poulter of
the London Medical School, "pregnancy, prolonged bed rest or
immobility and recent surgery carry a greater risk of venous
thromboembolism than oral contraceptive use."
(Press Release, 14 December 1995, United Nations Department of
Public Information, New York)
* * * * *
THE TIME HAS COME FOR TAKING A HOLISTIC AND GLOBAL APPROACH TO
SOLVING HEALTH PROBLEMS, says Dr. Ilona Kickbusch of the World
Health Organization (WHO). Director of WHO's health promotion,
education and communication division, Kickbusch said recently that
there is growing awareness of the value of investing in programs
that create health--like education. And, she said, health issues
are too important to be left to governments. Instead, she says,
more reliance must be placed on the public and private sectors,
including transnational corporations, academic institutions, the
mass media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). She explains
that such communicable diseases as AIDS have made it "very clear
that the health agendas are truly global agendas, and as long as
the problem still exists in one part of the world, it remains a
problem wherever you are."
THE NEW APPROACH CARRIES A RANGE OF BENEFITS, both social and
economic, says Kickbusch. The World Bank and WHO agree that
increasing the education of women would bring about not only
improved world health but a decline in population growth rates.
And, Kickbusch adds, pooling and sharing health research data and
experiences on an international basis would bring tremendous
economic benefits. For example, it is estimated that hundreds of
millions of dollars would be freed to attack other health
challenges if polio were eradicated.
(Weekend Australian, 23 January 1995, Australia)
* * * * *
WHEN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIANS WRITE THE SAD STORY OF VIETNAM'S
VANISHED RAINFOREST, THE BLAME WILL BE SHARED BY overpopulation,
poverty, rapid industrialization, strip logging and tourism. And,
of course, decades of war. Once a densely-forested country, over
60 percent of Vietnam's forests fell to French artillery and
American aerial poundings with bombs and herbicides. Now the last
stands of forest are disappearing under postwar human activities
and the hammering of natural phenomena: floods, drought and
typhoons. Roy Morey, director of the United Nations Development
Program, says that, "if the same rate of deforestation were to
continue in the future that has been the case in the past 40 years,
there would be no forest cover left by the year 2020." A rural
population of 2,000 people per square kilometer who earn an average
of US$1,900 has made poverty a primary cause of deforestation.
People raid the forests for fuelwood and building materials, and
many have taken to illegal logging on a larger scale--so far
eluding authorities' attempts to curb the practice. In the first
three months of 1995, more than 200 incidents of illegal logging by
gangs were reported in northwestern Vietnam, where black market
timber merchants provide a distribution network across the border
to China.
BUT IT IS NOT JUST THE POOR WHO ARE PILLAGING VIETNAM'S
FORESTS. In the race to catch up with its neighboring "economic
tigers," the Vietnamese government is giving top priority to
industrializing and wooing foreign exchange through tourism
development and other opportunities. Trees are being cleared for
government-approved golf courses, with seven new resorts planned
across the country. Developers pay a fine--which falls into
government coffers--per tree felled. Forty percent of the flora in
Vietnam's forests is not found anywhere else in the world. And one
third of Vietnam's mammals, 10 percent of its birds and 20 percent
of its amphibians and reptiles--most of them forest-dwellers--are
on the endangered list.
A FEW DEDICATED VIETNAMESE ARE BATTLING TO HALT THE
DEPREDATION. One is Professor Tran Van On, the first of the San
Chay tribe admitted to the faculty of Hanoi University. The
grandson of traditional healers, he spent much of his childhood
roaming the forest in search of medicinal plants. Today he
combines the academic fields of pharmacy and botany for a twofold
purpose: to provide an alternative income source for tribespeople
and, at the same time, to divert them from pillaging the forests in
their struggle to survive. At the university, the professor is
developing what he calls a "forest in a box" by cataloguing,
cloning, and distributing medicinal herbs indigenous to Vietnam's
forests before they disappear forever. Dr. Tran hopes that giving
lucrative seedlings to villagers will increase their economic
independence and provide an incentive to preserve forested lands.
He says that China and Hong Kong are particularly promising markets
for the raw materials for herbal medicines. He also hopes the work
will make the hill tribes more than just a colorful costumed photo
opportunity for the burgeoning eco-tourism industry. Another
environmental activist is Vietnam war hero General Giap, who won a
victory over the French at Dienbienphu. Now chairman of the
Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment, General Giap
draws capacity student attendance to his lectures on what he
considers the country's most important resource after its people:
its trees.
(South China Morning Post International Weekly, report by
Shirley Brady, 16 September 1995, Hong Kong )
* * * * *
ACCORDING TO PRELIMINARY FIGURES FROM TWO SOURCES, 1995 IS THE
HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD--bolstering scientists' belief that the
burning of fossil fuels is warming the earth's atmosphere.
According to data from the British Meteorological Office and the
University of East Anglia, the average temperature in 1995 was
58.72 degrees Fahrenheit (14.84 degrees centigrade), seven-
hundredths of a degree higher than the previous record set in 1990.
Another set of figures, maintained by the U.S. National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), shows an average 1995 temperature
of 59.7 degrees F (15.39 degrees C)--slightly ahead of 1990 as the
warmest year since record-keeping began in 1866. The two sets of
figures are based on a somewhat different combination of
measurements around the world. The British figures show that the
years 1991 through 1995 were warmer than any other five-year
period, including the two half-decades of the 1980s--so far the
warmest decade on record. Despite cooling caused by the sun-
reflecting haze following the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinautubo in the
Philippines, the NASA data show that the early 1990s were nearly as
warm as the late 1980s--the warmest half decade on record.
THE EVIDENCE "SUGGESTS A DISCERNIBLE HUMAN INFLUENCE ON
CLIMATE," according to a United Nations panel of scientists. Using
a measured tone, the panel noted that the observed atmospheric
warming is "unlikely to be entirely natural in origin." According
to Dr. Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia, one
year's temperature readings are not a good indicator of any trend.
But Jones said that "this figure from '91 to '95 is quite
illuminating," noting that it was nearly half a degree above the
1961-1990 benchmark average of 58 degrees F (14.44 degrees C). Dr.
Tom M.L. Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colorado, said that both the 1995 record high temperature
and the strikingly warm half-decade of the early 1990s are
"consistent with the sort of expectation we have of the interplay
between natural and manmade influences." The United Nations panel
predicted that by 2100, heat-trapping gas emissions would cause the
average global temperature, now approaching 60 degrees F (15.55
degrees C), to reach between 61.8 and 66.3 degrees F (16.55 and
19.05 C), with a best estimate of 63.6 degrees F (17.55 C). Carbon
dioxide is released into the air by the burning of coal, petroleum
products, and wood. (New York Times, 4 January 1996, New York)
* * * * *
NGO SUPPLEMENT February 1996
For and About NGOs and their Work
PROPOSALS TO INCREASE THE ROLE OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs) WITHIN THE UNITED NATIONS were recently
outlined by Mahbub ul Haq, the principal author of the annual
United Nations Human Development Reports between 1990 and 1995 [see
related story, p. 1 of Dateline]. Ul Haq said that as the 21st
century begins, "we have to restore the supremacy of the people at
the United Nations, as it has been restored through democratic
movements in many nations." Asserting his hopes that the next
century is "the century of the people," ul Haq proposed that the
General Assembly of the U.N. be comprised of two chambers--one for
government delegates and one for NGO representatives. This, he
said, would mean that "the voice of the people is heard all of the
time, not just during a series of U.N. conferences." Ul Haq said
that representatives of NGOs that are accredited to the U.N.
General Assembly should be organized in a world forum to meet
whenever the General Assembly is in session. "This is the pattern
of the future," ul Haq said, suggesting that if a permanent NGO
meeting is instituted in tandem with the General Assembly, new
paradigms for development and human security can take shape.
(Report by Megan McCarthy, 18 September 1995, Population
Communications International, New York)
* * * * *
PROPOSALS FOR UPGRADING AND EXPANDING THE IMPACT OF GRASSROOTS
ORGANIZATIONS are propounded in an article by Peter Uvin of Brown
University in the United States. The article focuses on NGOs that
fight hunger around the world, but the proposals for "scaling up"--
the process through which NGOs expand their impact--are relevant to
all NGOs. Uvin notes that while the "explosion of community-based,
participatory, grassroots action" in most developing countries over
the last three decades is very encouraging, he says that "it is
often recognized that most of these grassroots initiatives are
small, underfunded, poorly staffed, slow and localized in the face
of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation on a vast scale."
So Uvin's "scaling up" analyses are aimed at the development of
"well-managed and technically competent NGOs capable of mobilizing
large numbers of people and channeling large sums of money to a
variety of activities, and interacting with the state and
international agencies."
FOUR TYPES OF SCALING UP ARE ANALYZED AS THEY APPLY TO NGOs.
Quantitative scaling up is where a program or an organization
expands its size by increasing its membership base or constituency.
Linked to this, Uvin says, is an increase in the NGO's geographic
working area and budget. Functional scaling up is where a NGO
expands the number and type of its activities. For example, if an
organization starts in agricultural production, it could move into
health, nutrition, credit, training, literacy, etc. Political
scaling up refers to an organization moving beyond the provision of
services into addressing the "structural causes of
underdevelopment." Uvin says that this usually involves developing
relationships with state agencies and active political involvement.
Finally, organizational scaling up means that NGOs improve their
organizational strength as a way to improve their effectiveness,
efficiency and the sustainability of their activities. Uvin says
this can be done financially in a few different ways: by
diversifying sources of support, creating activities that generate
income--such as cooperative enterprises or consultancy--or by
ensuring that public legislation earmarks entitlements within
annual budgets to fund specific NGO programs. Organization-
building can also be done institutionally, says Uvin, by creating
links with other development organizations, both public and
private--including "the enterprise sector," and by improving the
internal management capacity of the staff--through training or
personnel development--allowing the organization and its programs
to grow, and also to learn from its mistakes.
UVIN PRESENTS PROFILES OF TEN ORGANIZATIONS AND EXAMINES THEIR
HISTORY OF GROWTH against the backdrop of the four categories of
scaling up. The Pakistan-based Aga Khan Rural Support Program
carries out a variety of aid projects internationally. The
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is considered to be
the single largest community-based development program in the Third
World, whose rural activities range from agriculture and credit to
health, nutrition, education and artisan production. Tanzania's
Nutrition Support Program, aligned to the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization, focuses on
advanced government and community participation in nutrition
monitoring and supplementary feeding. From a modest beginning, it
now operates in well over 420 villages in Tanzania. All of the ten
"core" organizations have upscaled dramatically since they were
founded. BRAC, which began work in one small region with a few
hundred peasants, now works with more than 7,000 village
organizations involving over 550,000 poor farmers. Uvin notes that
each of the cited organizations has followed its own path and that
"each path encounters its own rewards and difficulties" on its
journey toward success.
For a copy of the 12-page article, contact us at PCI: Patrice
Newman, Population Communications International, 777 United Nations
Plaza, New York, NY 10017 USA. Phone: 212-687-3366; fax: 212-687-
8089; e/mail: patrice newman@together.org
(World Development, Vol. 23, No. 6, 1995, Washington, DC)
* * * * *
SCARCELY 18 MONTHS AFTER THE INTERNATIONAL POPULATION
CONFERENCE IN CAIRO (ICPD), one Bangladesh nongovernmental
organization (NGO) is beginning to make its impact felt in policy-
making circles. The Dhaka-based NGO, Naripokkho, (a Bengali word
meaning "on the side of women") has been active on such issues as
domestic violence prevention, health, the environment and
development. Speaking for the organization, in which she is a
senior member, Nasreen Huq says the government has become more
responsive to NGOs since the Cairo conference. As she puts it:
"Cairo has emphasized that we have to work with the other side and
the other side has to work with us." Before the population
conference, she says, the government stonewalled any discussion of
women's health and reproduction, including their criticism of the
introduction of Norplant hormonal contraceptive implants into the
country's family planning program. But afterward, Huq says that
the government began responding to Naripokkho's criticism of the
lack of consultation with women's groups and their concerns about
the long-term effect of Norplant. And Naripokkho became the only
women's group in Bangladesh with a seat on the government committee
that works on implementing the Cairo Program of Action.
NARIPOKKHO IS PREPARING A NEW MANUAL FOR FAMILY PLANNING
WORKERS AND THEIR TRAINERS IN BANGLADESH. Key issues discussed
will be reproduction and contraception, including barrier methods
such as intra-uterine devices. The manual will be distributed to
NGOs and others working in the field and will be accompanied by a
Bengali translation of the Cairo Program of Action.
(Populi, April 1995, United Nations Population Fund, New York)
* * * * *