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Population policies |
Since the Cairo and Beijing conferences' historic
accords, countries have moved to put their recommendations into action. Numerous
population and development policies have been revised. There have been legal reforms to
better protect women's rights and promote gender equality. Health services have been
improved and reorganized. In many other developing countries, though, lack of funds and trained personnel has hampered efforts to improve family planning and reproductive health programmes. Population policies: Countries that had population policies in place have reformed them to better meet the ICPD criteria. Other countries that had no formal policies have adopted them, or are in the process of doing so. In some countries, reproductive health and family planning issues that were too sensitive to discuss publicly are now part of the political discourse. Reproductive health and family planning: After the ICPD, many countries organized work shops and seminars for planners and health workers on the new reproductive health approach and how to put it into action. Many have also made institutional changes. Even more widespread are various measures to expand access to reproductive health services, improve their quality, and widen their focus. Family planning is increasingly being integrated with other reproductive health concerns. A number of developing countries have begun to train health care providers in counselling and communication, strengthen their health infra structure, and develop medical protocols. Other efforts have focused on reducing maternal mortality, passing new laws, improving the quality and expanding the scope of services, and creating new programmes where needed. Adolescents: Since 1994, many governments have taken new initiatives to meet adolescents' reproductive and sexual health needs, often in collaboration with NGOs. Many are promoting education about reproductive health and family planning in an effort to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies. Several are also focusing on education and services for disease prevention. Non-governmental organizations: NGOs have a central role to play in advocacy and service delivery. Governments are working with them more and more. NGOs have a track record of higher standards of service and greater flexibility in reaching the marginal members of society. Consequently, governments have asked their help in providing services, testing new approaches, and training government staff. NGOs' missions are varied and often creative, including programmes that use gender-sensitive approaches to reproductive health problems, give testing for breast and cervical cancer, provide shelter to battered women, teach young people to support themselves, and train adolescent peer counsellors. Human rights: Some of the most important results of the ICPD are the strengthening of national laws and policies promoting human rights, particularly the rights to reproductive and sexual health, gender equality, and freedom from sexual violence. Several countries have established institutions to safeguard the rights of women. Both the ICPD and especially the Beijing women's conference raised global awareness of the need to enact and enforce legislation protecting women against sexual and domestic violence. Many countries have taken steps to do so. Women's participation: Women must be empowered to participate fully in the political and development processes, the ICPD programme affirmed. The political gender gap is evident in nearly all countries, but some notable advances have been made, by executive mandate and by elections. Role and responsibility of men: The signers of the ICPD Programme of Action agreed that it is important for men to take more responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behaviour and family life. Everyone is more aware than ever of the need to involve men in reproductive health programmes. Several NGOs are also conducting research to determine what men's reproductive health needs are, and to better understand their sexual, marital, parenting, and family decision-making roles. Global and regional initiatives: Since the Cairo conference, governments and NGOs have held many fruitful regional meetings to assess the status and needs of reproductive health services and determine how to follow up on the ICPD recommendations. The organization Partners in Population and Development (headquartered Dhaka, Bangladesh) is promoting the exchange of experience and expertise among developing countries. UNFPA has organized two post-ICPD meetings of an international NGO Advisory Committee, established to advise the Fund on policies, programmes, and strategies. Parliamentary initiatives: As a follow-up to the ICPD, parliamentarians from both developed and developing countries have organized various activities to promote population issues: calling on governments to mobilize resources, addressing key themes of the Cairo and Beijing conferences, and focusing on population and development-related concerns. Inter-agency collaboration: After the ICPD, the United Nations established an inter-agency task force (now the Task Force on Basic Social Services for All) to strengthen country-level collaboration. It developed a set of guidelines for the UN Resident Coordinator System to facilitate cooperation among governments, NGOs, UN agencies, and other development partners. UNFPA has been working with other UN agencies and international experts to draw up a reliable set of indicators to measure progress towards the goals of these conferences. Besides conventional statistics, the new indicators will measure unmet demand, access, service coverage, quality of care, and whether the laws and administrative apparatus needed are in place. Resource mobilization: The ICPD was the only international conference in this decade to agree on specific money amounts needed to carry out its recommendations--some $17 billion annually by the year 2000, and $21.7 billion by 2015. They estimated that about two thirds of this cost would be borne by the countries involved, and one third by the international donor community. Annual government expenditures, however, are still well below half the $17 billion the ICPD estimated will be needed by 2000. Developing countries have shown that they are prepared to do their part--but it remains to be seen if richer nations will have the vision to do the same. |
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