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| Expert Round-table Meeting on Kampala, Uganda
The United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA) has convened an international round-table meeting on 22-25 June in Kampala,
Uganda, to discuss progress made since the 1994 International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD) in Cairo in ensuring reproductive rights, especially for women, and in
implementing sexual and reproductive health programmes.
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The round-table, Dr.
Nafis Sadik said, should address the empowerment of women and the role of men in that
process. Women's empowerment must include education, support and advocacy for the rights
of women and girls, and free choice in the numbers and spacing of children. Empowerment
requires changes in the attitudes and behaviour of men, she stressed. Programmes must
therefore educate them and provide them with access to appropriate reproductive health
services and information.
The Director of Uganda's
Population Secretariat, Jotham Musinguzi, said his country has tried innovatively to
implement the Programme of Action, with the help of UNFPA, and will continue to strive to
"promote reproductive rights, provide reproductive health programmes, empower women,
involve men and protect human rights". "Even
though Uganda has done its best, its best may not be good enough," he continued.
"Therefore, we will follow the outcome of the round table closely in order to find
lessons to learn and apply in this country. 
Sharad Iyengar, Executive Director
of Action Research and Training for Health (ARTH), reported on recent policy and programme
changes in India since the ICPD. India's reproductive health and rights situation mirrors
its wide demographic diversity, sociocultural influences and the various capacities of
civil institutions, he said. But one common thread is the need to translate policy changes
into concrete, sustainable actions. He cited decentralization measures and the abolition
in 1995 of family planning targets and quotas.
Jackson Chekweko,
project manager of Uganda's Reproductive, Education and Community Health Programme
(REACH), which has ended the practice in the eastern district of Kapchorwa, just two years
after its launching in 1996. The UNFPA-supported programme works with elders, peer
educators and health workers to create positive cultural values and empower girls through
education. 
Barbara Klugman,
coordinator of the Women’s Health Project at the University of the Witwatersrand,
then reported on the gains made in legislating and implementing reproductive rights in
South Africa since the end of apartheid. This progress includes the country’s new
constitution, which contains explicit provisions for equality, health care and sexual and
reproductive rights; its newly adopted population policy; and the Termination of Pregnancy
Act of 1997.
Anika Rahman, Director
of the International Programme of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Law and
Policy, spoke on "reproductive health as a human right: gender equality and
women’s empowerment". She started by explaining the legal foundation for
reproductive rights in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other human rights
instruments adopted by the international community since 1945.