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| Population and Development Strategies | |
| Reproductive Health, including Family Planning and Sexual Health
Population and Development Strategies
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In the area of population and development strategies, UNFPA carried out activities aimed at increasing awareness of some of the population challenges that the world will be facing in the next century. These included devoting the year's edition of The State of World Population report to an investigation of the strains being caused by two demographic facts. The first fact is that the world now has the largest-ever generation of young people, thanks to past fertility increases. The second is that the world is now home to rapidly increasing numbers of elderly, because of declining mortality rates and increased life expectancies. Issues involving the elderly were also discussed during the year at a meeting on population ageing. UNFPA sponsored technical meetings that addressed other important issues as well, including international migration and the effects of population change on economic development. The Fund also made a significant step in its ability to monitor progress in achieving ICPD goals with the publication of "Indicators for Population and Reproductive Health Programmes". Notable among these activities was the launching of The State of World Population 1998 in London and 24 other cities throughout the world on 2 September. The event and the publication's major messages received extensive coverage in newspapers and radio networks around the world. The State of World Population 1998 was subtitled "The New Generations", in reference to the new challenges faced by the world in dealing with unprecedented numbers of young people and the elderly. The report examined the social implications of these demographic trends, including young people's pressing needs for education, job opportunities and health care, and the strains on national economies and social structures as they confront the need to support rapidly growing populations of older persons. Ageing. Collaborating with the Population and Family Study Centre of Belgium, UNFPA sponsored a "Technical Meeting on Population Ageing" in Brussels. One of the October meeting's chief themes was that in many developing countries, there are almost no provisions for support of elderly persons outside of the family. As societies attempt to provide such supports, the expenses incurred could threaten other development gains. Governments therefore need to respond to these emerging challenges and promote collaboration among a broad range of government institutions and international organizations. It was stressed that old-age security systems to alleviate poverty among the elderly have to address gender inequality. Moreover, the reproductive health of all people, especially women, should be ensured throughout their lifetimes, because of its importance to the quality of life at later stages. Migration. Another issue of great importance to countries as they formulate and implement development strategies is that of international migration. UNFPA took part in the organization of a "Technical Symposium on International Migration and Development", which was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, in June and July. More than 100 migration specialists from both developing and developed countries reviewed case studies on various aspects of migration, including its root causes, return migration and the migration of women. Also discussed were issues concerning refugees. The symposium's aim was to improve understanding of migration's causes and consequences from the point of view of both sending and receiving countries and to suggest ways to foster more orderly migratory flows and prevent the economic and social marginalization of migrants. Among the topics explored at the symposium were: poverty and environmental degradation as root causes of international migration; the effects of global and regional economic integration; the positive impact of migrants' remittances on sending countries' economies; the circumstances surrounding the migration of women; the import of skilled labour and the "brain drain"; unauthorized employment of migrants; return migration; the distinction between political and economic refugees; and the tightening of asylum policies since the end of the Cold War. In its conclusions, the symposium noted that international migration by definition involved more than one government and that bilateral and multilateral cooperation was necessary in a number of areas. Although participants recognized that it would be difficult to reach large-scale agreements on the complex issues involved, they agreed that there were a number of smaller steps that could be very useful. In particular, it was felt that policies to manage the flow of people across borders and to protect migrants' rights had to be based on reliable data and a careful analysis of migration's costs and benefits. Population change and economic development. A November symposium entitled "Population Change and Economic Development" was organized as part of the ICPD+5 review process. The symposium, sponsored by the Rockefeller and Packard Foundations on behalf of UNFPA, examined the overall consequences of population change in the development process. Organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the symposium was held in Bellagio. Speakers pointed out that for years economists have been reluctant to make strong statements about the direction and magnitude of the effects of demographic change on economic growth. However, some recent analyses suggest that there is a fairly strong, direct relationship between the two. Symposium participants identified four facts that need to be considered when assessing the relationship between demographic change and economic growth. First of all, the effect is conditioned by the level of development - the lower the initial level of per-capita income, the greater the net positive impact of demographic changes, especially of fertility decline. Secondly, the positive effect of the demographic changes associated with the demographic transition probably depends strongly on the economic policy that accompanies the transition. The third fact is that fertility decline is not only a possible cause of more rapid economic growth but also an outcome of factors associated with economic growth, including increased education, better functioning markets and so forth. And lastly, increases in economic growth per capita exaggerate real income gains to the extent that such increases reflect unsustainable degradation of natural resource wealth. The symposium also addressed the policy implications of the relationship between population and economic growth. Economic growth, participants noted, is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means used to attain larger objectives associated with improved well-being. Thus the new evidence that high fertility constrains economic growth does not in itself provide a rationale for public interventions to reduce fertility, particularly if the means to reduce fertility compromise the well-being and rights of individuals. However, the growing evidence that high fertility exacerbates poverty and that, among the poor, some portion of high fertility is unwanted and unintended does justify policies and interventions that can be shown to improve the situation of poor families, particularly the kind of reproductive health and family planning programmes that are included in the ICPD Programme of Action. Development of reproductive health and population indicators. Since the adoption of the Programme of Action, increasing emphasis has been placed on using indicators to measure progress in the implementation of population and reproductive health programmes. Reflecting this new emphsis, in October UNFPA issued "Indicators for Population and the result of a process that had begun in early 1996. In addition to the indicators, the publication included detailed discussion of issues considered in developing the indicator framework and their implications for data collection systems. The indicators are based on the recognition that the key to successful programme and project management is performance monitoring and evaluation. The thematic indicators are designed to monitor progress in achieving ICPD goals and to track performance in population and reproductive health programmes. Indicators were developed for each of the Fund's three core programme areas: reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health; population and development strategies; and advocacy. They were also designed to serve as markers to measure programme performance in conjunction with the logical framework programme methodology now used in the development of all UNFPA country programmes. UNFPA also acted as the secretariat for the Inter-Agency Working Group on Common Country Assessment (CCA) Indicators, which was formed by the United Nations Development Group (UNDG). The working group devoted its time to developing a new core indicator framework for use in CCA exercises, which are part of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), taking into account the goals and targets of the major global conferences that have taken place over the last decade. UNFPA helped in the design of the indicator framework, including the filtering and selection of the indicators, which are to be issued in 1999. Country-level initiatives. The area of population and development strategies accounted for approximately 24 per cent of the Fund's expenditures in 1998. The strategies aimed to strengthen the national capacity of programme countries to produce and analyse data; to provide timely, reliable and relevant information for policy formulation, programme development and monitoring and evaluation; and to develop and carry out programmes relevant to their own population situations. A large number of UNFPA-supported activities were undertaken in these areas in 1998. Censuses were held, or prepared for, in many countries in 1998. In Cambodia, for example, the National Population and Household Census - the country's first census since 1962 - enumerated 99 per cent of the population. The census has already begun to yield data that will assist in planning for the country's future development. It also helped build national capacity in this area, training over 36,000 enumerators and census supervisors, as well as more than 4,400 staff in such skills as mapping, data entry and editing. Namibia started preparations for its 2001 census and asked UNFPA to provide technical assistance, through its Country Support Team in Harare, on census planning and design and on cartography work. Nepal agreed to the joint suggestion of UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to create a gender-disaggregated database beginning with its 2001 National Population Census. In Panama, UNFPA provided limited but strategic technical assistance for the 2000 census. Zambia provided training for enumerators in census cartography as part of its preparations for the 2000 census. UNFPA supported many other capacity-building initiatives during the year as well. For example, in Ecuador, the Fund supported a project with the University of Cuenca to examine the linkages between population and sustainable development at the community level. The university is using graduate students to conduct community-level censuses to assist the Ministry of Public Health in ensuring that its decentralization efforts respond to community realities and identified needs. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, UNFPA is helping the Government design a survey to evaluate the coverage of the country's system for the registration of vital events. This assistance supports the nation's continuing efforts to develop a unified demographic data system. The Fund also assisted the Plan and Budget Organization in drafting the country's first-ever population policy paper. The draft paper is being used as an input for the preparation of the population chapter of the country's third five-year development plan. UNFPA also supported the Statistical Centre's efforts to analyse the results of the 1996 census and to disseminate the findings. In the Sudan, the curriculum for a master's of science degree in population and development was revised and updated, and training in research methodology for the national project directors of UNFPA-supported projects was provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Moreover, baseline surveys for all integrated reproductive health and family planning projects were carried out, and the reports on them are to be circulated in early 1999. Sociocultural research provided a wealth of information for future programming in Malawi. Studies on such issues as "Patterns of sexual behaviour of men and women in Malawi", "Socio-cultural determinants of women's reproductive health decision-making in Malawi", and "Beliefs and perceptions of parents, teachers and students" highlighted the role and bearing of initiation rites and ceremonies on sexual behaviour in Malawi. They also confirmed the importance of such research as a major programming tool. |