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Regional Overviews |
| Interregional programmes | |
Interregional Programmes Reproductive health Population and development strategies Advocacy ............................................... |
Advocacy Several research initiatives were conducted in the area of advocacy. A UNESCO-executed project focused on sociocultural factors affecting demographic behaviour and their implications for the formulation and execution of population policies and programmes, while the Society for International Development (SID) conducted research on reproductive health, empowerment and population policy. Several NGOs received support in the area of information dissemination, including The Population Institute, The Guttmacher Institute, Planet 21 and the Earth Times. The Centre for Development and Population Activities and Advocates for Youth participated in activities related to the development of training and advocacy prototype materials on such issues as the education of girls, adolescents, the importance of male involvement, and the development of a database on adolescent reproductive health. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was supported in a project aimed at increasing the interest and capacity of ILO’s partners in the labour sector to develop programmes for workers that promote responsible family life, gender equality and reproductive health. In the area of education, several undertakings were accomplished in 1997 with UNESCO as a major collaborator. A meeting of the Education For All Forum Steering Committee was held in Paris in October 1997 to review progress in key areas under the Education For All initiative. Among findings discussed at the meeting was an indication that teaching adolescent mothers about early childhood development could lead to a reduction in repeat pregnancies. Documentation on this point is limited to date but shows the need for further research. Another area of collaboration with UNESCO was through the interregional project "Promotion of Population Education at the University", which undertook a number of activities during 1997. The "Nine High Population Countries (E-9) Initiative" was launched by UNESCO, UNFPA and UNICEF in 1992 to draw the world’s attention to the actions of the largest countries in meeting their population challenges and to provide opportunities for them to share problem-solving strategies. Meetings of ministers and staff have been held periodically since then. A Ministerial Review was held in Islamabad in September 1997. Some of the initiatives reported at that meeting included: (a) Nigeria has enacted a law to prohibit removal of girls from school for the purpose of marriage; (b) Mexico has emphasized pre-school education for girls, having documented that this helps prevent later drop-out; and (c) Egypt has developed a video-conferencing programme for teacher training in 26 remote centres. At the "Adult Learning: A Key for the 21st Century – 5th International Conference on Adult Education", UNFPA sponsored a high-level panel. An article on population education for adults prepared by UNFPA for the International Journal of Adult Education and Development became part of the background information for the conference. The paper and subsequent UNFPA presentation to the plenary addressed the importance of linking the health and education systems, using the reproductive life cycle to illustrate points of entry. .
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| Foreword | Introduction | UNFPA in 1997 | Programme Priorities | |