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What
the Programme of Action will Achieve? |
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September 13, 1994, Cairo, Egypt: The world has just
concluded a gathering of monumental importance for the future of humanity. The
corridors are clogged with the representatives of 180 nations, among them thousands of
women of every race and creed. The mood is one of exhausted elation--especially
among the women. They have won much more than they had dared hope.
Women have been centrally involved in the debate. Human rights are
at the centre of the discussion at Cairo, and the action to follow. The world's
nations have publicly acknowledged that health and well-being, equity and equality for
women, are important ends in themselves. They have agreed that finding the balance
between resources and population, development and sustainability, concerns people, not
numbers. This is consensus--the final act in years of discussion. The
Programme of Action for the International Conference on Population and Development can
actually change the future course of humanity.
The Cairo Programme of Action sets a course for the next twenty years, focusing on people
and people's needs. It is ambitious; it reflects the best of our shared values as a
world community. It is also urgent; if we do not act on its recommendations, there
could be as many as 12.5 billion human beings in the world in the year 2050 instead of 7.9
billion This is a difference of well over four billion people: as many as the entire
population of the world in 1974. Efforts for economic growth and sustainable use of
resources would be "suffocating under the weight of numbers." Eighty per cent of
the world's current population of 5.7 billion are in today's developing countries: 96 per
cent of the annual population increase is in the same developing countries, in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America.
If the Programme of Action is successful, however, life will improve for these same
people, and the foundations will be laid for the end of poverty. The needless deaths
of millions of women will be prevented. The burden of ill health will be lifted from
tens of millions of women and hundreds of millions of girls children. Girls will be
better educated, and women will be brought into the mainstream of political and economic
life in their countries. Their families, indeed all families, will benefit
tremendously. And one cause of pressure on the global environment will be greatly
relieved.
As the world's nations move into the twenty-first century, their action on the Cairo
accord will mean the difference between human rights upheld or denied; between desperate
poverty and the hope of prosperity; between devastation of the world around us and
responsible stewardship of our planetary home.
WHAT
THE PROGRAMME OF ACTION WILL ACHIEVE.
These are large claims to make for any document, and there will be sceptics. The
goals of Cairo are reachable, however, with the determination, fire,and commitment of
those who will carry them out.
Energetic and committed implementation of the Programme of Action over the next twenty
years:
Will bring women at last into the mainstream of development; it will
protect their health, promote their education, and encourage their economic contribution;
Will ensure that every pregnancy is intended, and every child is a
wanted child;
Will protect women from the results of unsafe abortion;
Will protect the health of adolescents, and encourage responsible
behaviour;
Will combat HIV/AIDS;
Will promote education for all and close the gender gap in education;
Will protect and promote the integrity of the family.
In this Programme of Action, population and development policies rest on
the solid basis of Human Rights: women's equality, freedom from poverty, and the right to
development. Its adoption marks the first time the great majority of the world's
nations have, together, publicly endorsed these rights.
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