Governments

NGOs

Women

Research & Monitoring

Partnerships

Employers

Funding Needs

We have already touched on a number of the actions that will necessary to make the Programme of Action a reality.   There are many specific responsibilities national governments will have to shoulder, the delegates agreed.

GOVERNMENTS TAKE THE LEAD.
Governments from the highest echelons, agreed to take a leading role in educating and informing their citizenry, in supporting fair and humane attitudes and eliminating discrimination against women, in passing the necessary laws to implement the Programme of Action, in making services available and ensuring their quality, in working with NGOs and women's groups, and in increasing the percentage of their budgets allotted to these activities.  Governments are also urged to work with corporations and other employers to make parental responsibilities less burdensome, specifically for single parents. The Programme of Action also asks governments to give more support to the very poor, the chronically unemployed, and victims of domestic and sexual violence.  Nations should institute and maintain national databases and prepare progress reports for related United Nations conferences.  They should reinforce existing watchdog agencies, and publish their research findings.  Monitoring agencies and programmes, where they do not exist, should be established, and governments should work with NGOs, the media, parliamentarians, and academe to do so.

THE ROLE OF NGOs.
Non-governmental organizations and women's groups are critical players in this process.   They played a crucial role in Cairo.  they have shown that they can be creative, flexible, and sensitive to the needs of the people they serve.  In fact, the chapter on NGOs (chapter XV) in the Programme of Action is the strongest such chapter ever to come out of a United Nations conference.  It strongly recommends that NGOs be involved in designing and monitoring population programmes, and urges governments to give them financial support, work with them, and make good use of their knowledge and expertise.  Governments are additionally called on to give NGOs the technical help they need, and allow them access to information on family planning programmes, thus enabling them to monitor the progress of these programmes.  Governments should also include NGO representatives in their national delegations to regional and international forums on population issues.

INVOLVING WOMEN.
Governments must involve women at all levels in carrying out the goals of the Programme of Action.  Women know best what they need.  Their needs should be addressed in development strategies as well as in population programmed.  Women are the linchpin of any such programme.

RESEARCH AND MONITORING PROGRESS.
Research into effectiveness of reproductive health programmes must be improved.  In the past, records were not always kept on continuation of use of contraceptives, for instance.  Researchers sometimes assumed that women who accepted contraceptives is one clinic visit would continue to use them, but this has not always been the case.   Unless the women were given good information about their choices, examined for sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive tract infections, and given good follow-up care, many would cease to use contraceptives if any problems developed.  Others have been put off by clinic workers who seemed insensitive to their needs.

Monitoring these programmes is critical to their success.  Governments are urged to step up their efforts in this, and involve NGOs and women's groups as well.  None of the programmes will work well if they do not have the support and understanding of the people they are meant to serve.

PARTNERSHIPS.
The Conference urged Governments, NGOs and International organizations to promote a partnership with the private sector to produce and distribute high-quality, low-cost contraceptives.

EMPLOYERS.
The Conference encouraged private sector employers to continue to devise and implement special programmes that help meet their employees' need for information, education, and reproductive health services and accommodate their employees' need to combine work and family responsibilities.  The Conference also recommended that organized health-care providers and health insurers should continue to include family planning and reproductive health services in the package of health benefits they provide.

FUNDING NEEDS.
Chapter XIII of the Programme of Action estimates the funding needed by developing countries in the years from 2000 to 2015 for basic reproductive health services, including family planning, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, and population research and policy formulation.  Programmes in these three areas will cost, in total, US$17 billion in 2000, $18.5 in 2005, $20.5 billion in 2010, and $21.7 billion in 2015.

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