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UNFPA IN THE NEWS – August 30 - September
5, 2003
Agence France-Presse reported
September 5 that the hungry global economy is eating up the earth's natural
resources at a far faster rate than they can be renewed,
warned Lester Brown,
president and founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy
Institute. "Our
existing economic output is based in part on cutting trees faster than they can
grow, overpumping aquifers, and draining rivers dry. On much of our cropland,
soil erosion exceeds new soil formation. We are taking fish from the ocean
faster than they can reproduce," he cautioned. "We are creating a bubble
economy, an economy whose output is artificially inflated by drawing down the
earth's natural capital," Brown wrote in his book, which was funded by UNFPA.
Read: Agence
France-Presse
The Independent
(Bangladesh) reported September 4 that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
under its pilot project of SBA training program has provided training to 90 SBAs
in six districts or upazilas – Daudkandi (Comilla), Shakhipur (Tangail),
Banaripara (Barisal), Chunarighat (Hobiganj), Akkelpur (Joypurhat) and
Jhikargacha (Jessore). WHO supported training in three upazilas while UNFPA
supported the project in the remaining three upazilas. Both UN agencies are
committed to extend the program to more districts once the piloting is over.
UNFPA has already planned to extend the program to eight additional districts,
along with three pilot districts. These are Pabna, Brahmanbaria, Kushtia,
Kishoreganj, Faridpur, Jamalpur, Netrokona and Narsingdi. United News of
Bangladesh also reported on this story.
Infoprod reported September 3 that
according to Bahrain
Tribune, Arab migration patterns and challenges will be the focus of
the Regional Conference on Arab Migration in a Globalized World, which is
underway at the League of Arab States headquarters in Cairo. The conference is
organized by the League, the Population Policies Department and the
International Organization for Migration, in cooperation with UNFPA and the
UNDP.
UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks reported September 3 that UNFPA plans to spend $40 million
over the next five years to improve reproductive health in Nigeria, which has
one of the world's worst rates of maternal and infant mortality. "Nigeria is
facing very serious population and developmental challenges," UNFPA'srepresentative in Nigeria, Niangoran Essan,
told a seminar in the southern city of Asaba, Anambra state. "There is wide a
prevalence of cultural and traditional practices that negatively affect the
reproductive health of women and men," he added. Essan said UNFPA would contribute $25 million of
its own funds to the Nigerian reproductive health program, which would provide
medical and birth control equipment and technical assistance. The remaining $15
million would come from other donors. Read: UN
IRIN
Pakistan News Service reported
September 5 that the Ministry of Population Welfare with the cooperation
of UNFPA finalized the Mobile Service Unit curriculum on Sept. 4. During
the workshop, participants finalized the curriculum to ensure that each staff
member
of the mobile service unit is trained to provide quality services on
family planning and reproductive health during his out reach campaign in the
rural
areas. Read: Pakistan News
Service
New Vision
(Uganda) reported September 3 that UNFPA has resumed its campaign to fight
female genital mutilation among the Sabiny people in Kapchorwa district. The
manager of the Reproductive Educative and Community Health-Reach Project,
Beatrice Chelangat, said UNFPA was recruiting advocacy teams to
sensitize communities about the dangers of the practice. "UNFPA is starting
a fresh campaign which will include the arrest of the 'surgeons' who perform
the mutilation," she
said. Read: New
Vision
New Vision
(Uganda) reported September 2 that the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social
Development, Bakoko Bakoru, criticized the media for failure to report the high
maternal deaths in the country. "Is it because they (mothers) are voiceless?"
she asked. Bakoko said at least 22 mothers die everyday in childbirth-related
complications but no media has highlighted this tragedy. "When an omnibus
crashes and kills five people, this becomes a headline. I am wondering why the
media people, in the name of God, do not want to report about the silent deaths
of the mothers of this nation," she said. UNFPA country representative,
James Kuri, said the six million people infected with HIV/AIDS was still a big
number,
which should be reduced further by engaging in reproductive health programs.
He
said UNFPA would continue
supporting the programs. Read: New
Vision
The Philadelphia Daily News (PA) ran a September 3 editorial that
noted, “Last week, the State Department stopped financing Marie Stopes
International, a well-regarded AIDS program for African and Asian refugees.” The
editorial explained, “Why? It works with the United Nations Populations
Fund, which last year was smeared by a fringe group that said it participates
in China's program of coerced abortions. Even though his own State Department
found no truth to this Big Lie, Bush ordered a $34 million cut.” The
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (TX) also ran a September 4 editorial that
cautioned, “With
a death toll that has topped 25 million worldwide, the AIDS/HIV crisis is a
tragic topic for political grandstanding. If Bush truly is interested in helping
those
suffering, he will immediately pull the restrictions that make his promises
ring hollow.” Read: Philadelphia
Daily News and Fort Wayne Journal
Gazette
The
Washington
Times took
an opportunity to commend the State Department’s decision in an August
31
editorial: “It's not often that we have the opportunity to praise the
State Department. On Tuesday [Aug. 26], however, the bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom
put
calculated delicatesse aside and did the right thing for the right
reasons.” Read: Washington
Times
The East
African (Kenya)
reported September 1 that thousands of refugees in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and
other African countries will lose access to HIV/AIDS services as a result of
a
decision by the State Department to deny funding to an organization targeted
by US religious conservatives. Leaders of the Reproductive Health Consortium
decided to reject all funds from the US government after the State Department
singled out one of the consortium's member-organizations for punishment. The
department moved last month to halt its assistance to Marie Stopes International
because the organization works closely in China with the United Nations Population Fund. The London Observer (UK) also
reported on this story. Read: East
African
The New York
Times ran
a letter by Sue Hornik, director of media relations of International Women's
Health Coalition, on September 2. In it, she notes, “This action against a
respected program because of its work with the United Nations Population Fund is
part of a pattern by the administration, pushed by far-right groups, to take
money away from comprehensive family-planning programs. Three fact-finding
missions, including one by the State Department, have discredited the original
charge that the population fund supported coercive abortion policies in China.”
Hornik also mentioned, “The charge was made by a tiny, controversial Virginia
group, whose ‘researcher’ had never before been to China and did not speak
Chinese. We must ask how extremists have been able to kidnap our policy-making
and stall financing to programs that save thousands of women's lives every
year.” Read: New York
Times
OneWorld ran a September 5 story by Barbara Crossette that reported
couple of years ago, a conservative organization called the Catholic Family
and Human Rights Institute produced a very contentious report claiming that
UNFPA
was complicit in China's forced abortion policy. After succeeding in that campaign,
the institute, which largely reflects Vatican policy, is now laying the groundwork
for an attack on UNICEF. The agency, it argues in a new report — The United
Nations Children’s Fund: Women or Children First? — has been taken
over by radical feminists, led by Carol
Bellamy, the Executive Director. Read: OneWorld
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