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PRESS
RELEASE
United Nations Population
Fund
Contact in New York:
Alex Marshall
Fax: (212)
557-6416
William
Ryan
Abubakar
Dungus
Round Table
on
Reproductive Health and Rights Ends in
Uganda
Recommends Key Actions to Ensure
Women's
Rights and Improve Health Programmes
KAMPALA, Uganda, 25 June (UNFPA) -- Experts on
reproductive rights and health from around the world agreed today on
actions needed to speed progress towards the goals set by the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held
in Cairo in 1994.
The Expert Round-table Meeting on Ensuring Reproductive Rights
and Implementing Sexual and Reproductive Health Programmes,
Including Women's Empowerment, Male Involvement and Human Rights
concluded after adopting a set of recommendations on carrying out
the ICPD Programme of Action.
Launched on 22 June, by the Executive Director of the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr. Nafis Sadik, the four-day
conference brought together about 50 experts and observers to assess
achievements and constraints and propose key future actions. The
UNFPA-organized event at Kampala's International Conference Centre
is part of ICPD+5, a year-long evaluation of progress in the five
years since Cairo.
Participants included government and non-governmental health
professionals and women's rights advocates from some 30 countries,
and representatives of the United Nations Population Division,
UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank. It featured presentations on a wide
range of topics,among them: developing a sexual and reproductive
health policy; implementing and monitoring feasible standards of
care; broadening the constellation of services within existing
health systems; reducing maternal mortality; female genital
mutilation; violence against women: the role of the health and
education sectors; key issues in improving access to sexual and
reproductive health services; reproductive health as a human right;
and legislating reproductive rights.
The recommendations adopted were proposed by four working groups
formed around the round table's four agenda themes: policies for
sexual and reproductive health; designing quality sexual and
reproductive health services; accessibility; and creating the
necessary conditions for implementing sexual and reproductive health
and rights.
The experts agreed that implementation efforts should be based on
human rights principles and objectives that underpin the ICPD
Programme of Action, including gender equality and women's
empowerment; universal access to the means to ensure reproductive
and sexual health and to exercise reproductive choice; and that
there should be no discrimination or coercion in reproductive and
sexual health programmes.
Proposing key future actions on policies for sexual and
reproductive health, for instance, the experts recommended that
governments give priority to ensuring such health for all at the
highest achievable standard of care. They specifically suggested
executive-level decisions to reorientate health systems to ensure
that policies, strategic plans and all aspects of implementation are
rights-based, cover the life cycle and serve everyone. This requires
changing the attitudes of policy makers, health care providers and
consumers to make health systems open to inputs from civil
society.
Governments, they proposed, should enact laws to meet Cairo
commitments and finance groups that are translating the Programme of
Action into legal terms and advocating its implementation. They
should provide more money to carry out the Programme. Civil society
organizations should also provide more resources to build alliances,
to undertake advocacy and raise awareness as well as to create a
favourable environment for implementing the Programme of Action.
To create conditions necessary for realizing sexual and
reproductive rights, the experts recommended, among other things,
increasing the involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
in States parties' implementation of human rights treaties. Human
rights commissions should be set up, they added, in all countries to
address the rights discussed at the round table.
At the same time, they recommended policies to advance the rights
of women and girls, and that restrictive, discriminatory and
punitive laws be repealed.
Participants agreed there has been progress towards the
comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health services
called for by the ICPD Programme of Action. Family planning
programmes in several countries have been broadened to offer a wider
choice of contraceptive methods, and some now include post-abortion
care and treatment of abortion complications. Some services for men
have been set up. There is growing political support for integrated
reproductive health services, and community involvement has
increased.
Health providers are often overworked, underpaid, however; many
need better counselling skills and training, they noted. Some
programmes are mismanaged or inadequately monitored. Minimum care
standards are not well-defined. A lack of funds has slowed
improvements in care and the expansion of services to those not
previously cared for, including adolescents. Restrictive or
ambiguous laws impede provision of some services.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) need to be supported to
play a greater role in service delivery. Innovative programmes need
to be funded and scaled up. Decentralization of national health
systems must not lead to neglect of reproductive health priorities.
And they agreed that international donors should fund the shift from
family planning programmes to broader reproductive health care.
Among actions proposed to promote gender equality, the round
table recommended that practical steps be taken to end legal,
economic and social discrimination against women; and to make men
recognize women's critical need for access to reproductive health
care.
The round table identified various constraints impeding ICPD
implementation. These included: the increase in poverty and
inequality worldwide; underfunded social sectors; the privatization
of health services; persistence of gender inequality; fundamentalist
ideological opposition to aspects of the Programme of Action; and
government restrictions on civil society bodies' participation in
policy development and implementation.
Important successes achieved in the areas of sexual and
reproductive health and rights were also highlighted by the experts.
For example:
- South Africa's new population and health policies; bans on
female genital mutilation (FGM) in Egypt, Burkina Faso and
Senegal, and
- Uganda's culturally sensitive approach to eradicating it; and
the enactment in many countries of laws against domestic violence.
In remarks to close the round table, 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."
James Kuriah, the UNFPA Representative in Uganda, expressed hope
that the meeting will promote networking and further exchange of
experiences in ICPD implementation.
The Director of the Technical and Policy Division, Mohammed
Nizamuddin, congratulated the experts for producing recommendations
that will have far-reaching effects.
"This meeting has not witnessed the kind of polarization that has
become the feature of many similar events across the world," he
said. He said he had hoped for more concrete recommendations on how
to attract greater resources to implement the Programme of
Action.
The round table is the second in a series of international events
that are part of the ICPD+5 process which consists of activities
connected with a five-year review of progress made in implementing
the ICPD Programme of Action and to make recommendations for the
future.
As part of the ICPD+5 process, UNFPA is sponsoring a series of
events including technical meetings and round-table discussions on
selected subjects as well as an International Forum on ICPD
implementation to be held in February 1999 in the Netherlands. The
first round table, on adolescent reproductive and sexual health
needs and in reducing levels of teenage pregnancy, was held on 14-17
April in New York.
The ICPD+5 process will conclude with a special session of the
United Nations General Assembly on 30 June-2 July, 1999, to appraise
the implementation of the Programme of Action.
The report of the round table on reproductive rights and sexual
and reproductive health programmes will be consolidated, along with
those from other round tables and technical meetings, into a report
for review by the International Forum and as background document for
the United Nations Secretary-General's report to the Assembly's
special session. |