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) |
|
Dispatches: News from UNFPA
Number 8, July/Aug. 1996
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This document is published and made available in electronic
format by the Information and External Relations Division, United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 220 East 42nd Street, New York,
NY 10017, USA. (212) 297-5020. For further information, contact:
Jessica Jiji, jiji@unfpa.org, or Hugh O'Haire, ohaire@unfpa.org.
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GIVING TEENS A CHOICE IN BOTSWANA
FRANCISTOWN -- Getting pregnant and dropping out of school is a
reality for 10,000 teenagers each year in Botswana. UNFPA has
joined the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and
international donors to help teens make informed choices and to
help young mothers get back into the classroom.
UNFPA's project, "Widening Choices for Adolescents," has
provided some US$309,890 since 1994 to the YWCA's Peer Approach
to Counselling by Teens (PACT) programme and Education Centre for
Adolescent Women (ECAW), which helps teen mothers to finish
school.
Working with the Ministry of Education, the YWCA originally
launched a similar programme and centre in Gaborone. Based on
PACT's success in reaching 7,600 students at 11 schools there,
the YWCA brought the programmes to Francistown. Here, PACT has
trained five training officers, 70 peer educators, and head
masters, teachers, counsellors and community leaders through
courses at the YWCA. Teen Chat, a weekly radio programme, was
launched at the start of the project and information, education,
and communication (IEC) materials have been published and widely
distributed to students at schools and community centres.
PACT is a preventive programme that helps teens counsel each
other. In each participating school, ten students and one
teacher are selected to attend a one-week workshop as well as
weekly meetings to help them address typical teenage troubles.
The training programme covers team building, communication
skills, value identification, human growth and development,
facts and myths about human sexuality, contraception,
decision-making and problem solving, relationships, STD
prevention, AIDS education, identification and use of community
services, and group facilitation and leadership skills.
Teen pregnancy, drug abuse, peer pressure to have pre-marital
sex, and dropping out of school are among the major issues
facing teens in the 1990s. Student counsellors now pressure their
peers to stay in school, delay having sex, and, if they are
already sexually active, to get and use contraceptives to prevent
unplanned pregnancy and STDs.
ECAW is the YWCA's remedial programme for teen mothers who
have dropped out of school. The YWCA has set up a one-year
study programme designed to help young mothers continue their
education. It provides an integrated programme of education,
counselling, day care, and family life education to prepare
young women to sit for their junior certificate examinations so
they can enter secondary or vocational schools. In 1991, 60
teen mothers completed the programme and obtained their junior
school graduation certificates.
PACT and ECAW are tailor-made to reach young women, who
represent 80 per cent of drop-outs. About 77 per cent of
female drop-outs leave school because they are pregnant,
according to a 1988 study. In Botswana, women comprise half the
workforce and head almost half the nation's households, yet
they find themselves restricted by laws that place them under
the guardianship of their fathers and brothers. Being young and
pregnant almost inevitably means leaving school.
Increasing numbers of early or unwanted pregnancies and
shorter intervals between births have become major problems. In
1991, half of Botswana's population of 1.33 million was under
15 years old. A recent study showed that by age 19, some 85 per
cent of young women are sexually active, often without using
contraceptives. In 1988, only 14.2 per cent of sexually active
women between ages 15 and 19 used contraceptives, most
frequently oral contraceptives. Condoms were used by 1.9
per cent of teenagers.
Teen mothers account for 18 per cent of all births and 28 per
cent of maternal deaths. Pregnant teens face a risk of
pregnancy-related disability or death 60 times greater than
women aged 20-35. Teenagers are also more likely to conceive
outside stable relationships and more often seek illegal
abortions
since 85 per cent of their pregnancies are unplanned. Health
studies show that children born to teenage mothers weigh less,
have greater susceptibility to neonatal diseases and as a
result have higher mortality rates than those born to older
mothers.
Botswana's Ministry of Health is doing its part to make it
easier for teens to get contraceptives. Since 1987, family
planning guidelines have stated explicitly that parental
permission for contraceptives is not required. Since 1989,
family planning services have been integrated into basic health
care services at 70 per cent of government-run clinics.
Since the 1970s, Botswana's mortality rate has dropped to 9.7
per 1,000 from 13.7 per 1,000 largely due to a health care
system that now reaches 85 per cent of the population. The
government currently spends 7 per cent of its annual budget on
health. This is the second highest rate in Africa.
In addition to government support to the YWCA programmes, a
joint YWCA/WHO/UNFPA evaluation last October showed that PACT
is ready to be introduced to schools nationwide. In the past,
the programme has received funding from SIDA, USAID, NORAD, and
UNFPA. Bilateral support for the YWCA projects has been
scheduled to be phased out and the Ministry of Education and
the YWCA are currently seeking funding to develop PACT projects
in schools throughout the country.
Written by Eileen Travers. Sources: Project documents; Botswana
Programme Review and Strategy Development Report. Further
information from: Africa Division, UNFPA, 220 East
42nd Street, New York, NY 10017, USA. Fax: (212) 297-4901.
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UNFPA AND IRAN TRAINING JOURNALISTS
As part of its advocacy efforts, UNFPA's Iran country office in
April organized a training course for the media, "Development
Journalism with Emphasis on Population and Family Planning." The
course was conducted at the Iranian Media Training Center in
collaboration with the Faculty of Social Science of Allameh
Tabatabai University, with the United Nations Information Centre
in Tehran extending support to UNFPA in organizing the course
programme. The objective of the training was to enhance
journalists' knowledge of UNFPA's activities in the Islamic
republic and to encourage them to play a more dynamic and active
role in promoting public awareness of issues relating to
population and family planning. Journalists from the leading
newspapers, magazines, and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
competed to be including among the course's 28 participants. The
event received widespread publicity and lead to the publication
and broadcast of a number of articles and reports on population
and development issues.
Source/further information from: Shu-Yun Xu, UNFPA
Representative, Ghaem Magham Farahani No. 185, P.O. Box
15875-4557, Tehran, Iran. Fax: (98-21) 504-8864.
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UNDP REPORTS: WEALTH GAP WIDENS
Nearly 90 countries are worse off economically than they were 10
years ago, according to the Human Development Report 1996. This
year's report looks at the widening gaps between rich and poor
within countries and among continents. The report shows that
failing to put people at the centre of development puts brakes on
everybody's gains, in developing countries as well as
industrialized countries. The basic feature of the report, the
human development index, ranks countries on the basis of life
expectancy, education and basic purchasing power. Specific
indexes focus on detailed aspects of development, such as the
relationship between wealth, poverty and social investment,
employment, and the role of women.
* 89 countries are worse off economically than they were 10
years ago, leading to global polarization between haves and have
nots.
* No country can sustain high levels of economic growth
without a strong foundation of human development.
* Everyday, 6,000 new HIV infections occur, one every 15
seconds, and 90 per cent of those new infections are in
developing countries. HIV/AIDS sets back human development by
years in some countries.
* The very rich are getting richer. The assets of the world's
358 billionaires exceed the combined annual incomes of
countries accounting for nearly half 45 per cent of the world's
people.
Source/further information from: United Nations Development
Programme, New York. Contact Barbara Francis: (212) 906-5312 or
Cherie Hart: (212) 906-5304.
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Special Feature:
SADIK TERMS AFRICA INITIATIVE MOST IMPORTANT'
Following are excerpts from the statement of UNFPA Executive
Director Dr. Nafis Sadik at the 15 March launch of the United
Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa. The Initiative
was launched in New York and Addis Ababa by UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, World Bank President James Wolfensohn,
Ethiopian Prime Minister and Organization of African Unity
Secretary-General Meles Zenawi, Dr. Sadik, and the heads of other
UN development agencies. It is a multi-billion dollar,
inter-agency attempt to redirect development assistance to
priority areas defined by African leaders. Among these are
health, including reproductive health, education, water,
peacekeeping, postal efficiency, technology transfer,
and debt reduction.
"We are here to initiate a much needed collaboration, one
which commits the United Nations system to marshal all its best
efforts, in concert, to support the development of a
continent's people.
"The heart of the Special Initiative on Africa is people in
1996, more than 728 million African men, women, children and
infants; by 2010, more than 1 billion individuals; and, by the
year 2025, almost one and a half billion persons.
"To succeed in this effort, we must seriously address the
issue of population, which affects every sector that the
Initiative seeks to improve. We must take into account
population size, growth and distribution at every step. And we
must give high priority to reproductive health, including
family planning, and to promoting gender equality and the
empowerment of women.
"Population in Africa is growing by 2.7 per cent a year,
outpacing economic growth in all but a few countries. The urban
population is growing by 4.3 per cent a year, faster than any
other region of the world. Poverty has increased sharply in
recent years. Half the labour force is currently unemployed or
underemployed. Population factors, therefore, are critical to
the Initiative's efforts to promote basic education, health
reforms, an enabling environment, drought management and
measures to ensure water and food security.
"Life expectancy in Africa is only 54.2 years. In sub-Saharan
Africa, more than 200 million people lack access to basic
health services. About 85 of every 1,000 babies die in their
first year, and annually more than 4 million children die
before reaching the age of 5. A central goal of the Initiative,
therefore, is to help countries to reform their health sectors,
boosting their capacity to combat the most common causes of
ill-health and death.
"Development depends on the participation of all people men
and women. Empowerment of women, therefore, is imperative.
"In many places, women's status depends on their reproductive
role, but even in that they often receive little support. The
average woman in sub-Saharan Africa bears more than six children.
Because of a combination of high maternal mortality and high
fertility, she has a 1 in 21 lifetime risk of death from
pregnancy-related causes. More than 600 mothers die for every
100,000 live births. Teenage pregnancy is high and rising in
many countries. Harmful practices such as female genital
mutilation undermine individual dignity and contribute to
reproductive ill-health. HIV/AIDS continues to take a heavy
toll. Fewer than 15 per cent of couples use modern methods of
contraception, and among married women more than 25 per cent
are estimated to have unmet needs for family planning services.
Improving reproductive health will be a major step in laying a
solid basis for the development of Africa and its people.
"The global conferences of the 1990s have all stressed the
value of basic social services including health care and
education. The Special Initiative recognizes that African
countries need to strengthen the infrastructure and staffing of
basic health services. Within the health context, the 1994
International Conference on Population and Development
emphasized the importance of reproductive health including
sexual health and family planning; countries agreed that
comprehensive reproductive health care should be available to
all, including adolescents. African Governments played a major
role in shaping this consensus.
"All these global conferences have also put a priority on
increasing access to education, especially for girls. As part
of this effort, there is keen interest in ensuring that young
people have appropriate education about reproductive and sexual
health, and family life.
"UNFPA is pleased to join with our UN partners, with the World
Bank, with African Governments and the civil society in
particular, and with other development partners in this most
important initiative to support sustainable development in
Africa. As in the past, the Fund's priority efforts will be
aimed at building capacities in individual countries; our
programmes in Africa will support the Special Initiative by
assisting countries in implementing the ICPD goals and
approaches to reproductive health including family planning,
and in integrating population considerations into development
policies. And as chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Basic
Social Services, we will strive to promote effective
coordination and timely implementation of the UN system's
efforts to help Governments reform their health sectors and
provide basic education to all children, especially girls. I
wish all of us, together, the maximum success in implementing
this initiative."
Source: Executive Director's statement, as delivered. Further
information from: Information & External Relations Division,
UNFPA, 220 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017, USA. Fax: (212)
557-6416.
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ON WEB: VIRTUAL INFORMATION
NEW YORK -- A wide range of publications and other information
from UNFPA including DISPATCHES is now available on the Internet
via World-Wide Web (http://www.unfpa.org) and gopher
(gopher://gopher. unfpa.org).
Online materials include reports of meetings, technical
reports, press releases (including Project News, a monthly
digest of new Fund-supported projects), statements of the
Executive Director, the State of World Population report,
DISPATCHES, and POPULI, the Fund's quarterly magazine.
The UNFPA site is maintained in collaboration with the UN
Population Information Network (POPIN), UN Population Division,
Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy
Analysis. POPIN's sites (<http://www. undp.org/popin/popin.htm>
and <gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/11/ungophers/popin>) include a
variety of demographic, population, and family planning
information from around the world.
Source/further information from: William A. Ryan, Editor,
Information & External Relations Division, UNFPA, 220 East 42nd
Street, New York, NY 10017, USA.
Tel.: (212) 297-5279. Fax: (212) 557-6416. E-mail:
ryanw@unfpa.org.