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 The Programme of Action adopted at the
historic International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in
September 1994, continued to resonate throughout all the activities of UNFPA during 1997.
Notably, the year saw the beginning of a process designed to assess what has been achieved
since Cairo and to reinforce its message throughout the world. This process, known as
"ICPD+5", will involve the Fund and all relevant organizations of the United
Nations system as well as Governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other
members of civil society. The ICPD+5 process was endorsed by ECOSOC in its resolution
1997/42 in July 1997 and by the General Assembly in its resolution 52/188 in December
1997. The initiative will include a series of round tables, technical meetings and
regional consultations and will culminate in an international forum to be held in The
Hague in February 1999 and a Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly from
30 June to 2 July 1999.
One aspect of the ICPD+5 initiative will be to look at how well the countries of the
world, both developing and developed, are doing in meeting the financial commitments they
made at the ICPD to support population and reproductive health programmes. To that end,
the Fund presented a preliminary report to the Executive Board in 1997 discussing some of
the possible consequences up to the year 2000 if those financial goals are not met. This
was then followed with a paper that focused on the Fund's own funding needs and the ways
its work could be affected in the absence of such resources. A summary of that paper is
included in this Annual Report in the section on "Mobilizing Resources" on pages
45-48.
The themes that animate UNFPA's Annual Report for 1997 are ones that have become familiar
since the ICPD in 1994. Reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health,
remained the focus of the Fund's work during 1997, with programmes in the area of
adolescent reproductive health playing an increasingly important role. The Fund's support
for activities targeted at adolescents has expanded dramatically in the last decade. There
is good evidence that information and service programmes for adolescents, both male and
female, can make a difference, and this Annual Report highlights several notable examples.
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