| UNFPA IN THE NEWS – January 17-23, 2004 POOR COUNTRIES PAY PROMISED CONTRIBUTIONS NOT RICH COUNTRIES APA News Service reported head of the U.N. population
organization UNFPA Thoraya Obaid said poor countries are better
payers into her agency's funds than rich ones. Developing countries
had so far paid 80 percent of the funds they promised at a 1994
conference in Cairo, while industrial nations had only paid in
40 percent, she said at the press briefing. She said that in 2002
and 2003, the U.S. government under President George W. Bush had
held back funds for her agency already approved by Congress, giving
the reason that the UNFPA supported abortion projects in China.
Obaid praised the E.U. and countries like Canada which had compensated
for the withheld payments of the United States. In 2003, UNFPA
had funds available of 291 million dollars, the second-highest
level in its history after the 300 million dollars of 1995. Read:
APA News Service ISLAM ALLOWS FAMILY PLANNING A January 20 story by the Turkish Daily News
noted that Islam allows family planning. The story reported that
Dr. Nafis Sadik, the former executive director of UNFPA, said:
"Nearly all Muslim countries support family planning. As many
Islamic scholars have pointed out, the regulation of family size
is fully consistent with Islamic law. The Prophet Mohammed declared,
'The worst hardship is to possess plenty of children with inadequate
means.' Therefore if planning one's family is acceptable, it follows
that some means of fertility regulation must also be acceptable."
Professor Abdul Rahim Omran, commissioned by UNFPA to write "Family
Planning in the Legacy of Islam," said: "Family Planning in Islam
is neither prohibited nor required. It is only permissible, 'mubah.'
You can do it if conditions warrant it, and you can avoid it if
conditions do not warrant it. There are 54 Hadith texts from the
Prophet relating to contraception and family planning, and they
have been classified.” INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CONFERENCE: Youth
XChange The Gulf News’ January 21 story covering the
YouthXChange conference in Dubai noted, according to the United
Nations Population Fund, 2001, the youth comprise the largest
population demographic based on age. There are more than a billion
youth aged between 15 and 24. About 90 percent of those under
the age of 25 live in the developing world. IRAN: Earthquake Leads to Reproductive Health Crisis UN News Centre reported January 23 that worsening
hygienic conditions and a critical lack of reproductive health
services after last month’s deadly earthquake in the Iranian city
of Bam continue to threaten the well-being of thousands of women,
warned the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). “As survivors
return to the area and reconstruction begins, reproductive health
concerns must be a humanitarian priority,” Sharareh Amirkhalili,
UNFPA Assistant Representative in Iran, said. “The loss of health
workers and services has left pregnant women extremely vulnerable,
while exposing many others to the risk of unwanted pregnancy and
reproductive tract infections.” Read: UN News Centre KYRGYZSTAN: Delegation Participated in European Forum on Population Kyrgyz National News Agency, Kabar, reported
January 20 that a delegation of the Kyrgyz Republic visited Geneva
from January 11 to 16, 2004 to participate in the work of the
European Forum on Population, organized by UNFPA, European Economic
Commission of the United Nations and the government of Switzerland.
MALAYSIA: Nafis Sadik to Speak at World Conference A January 16 story by Bernama (Malaysia)
noted that Dr. Nafis Sadik, formerly Executive Director of the
United Nations Population Fund and current UN Envoy for AIDS in
Asia, will be one of the speakers at the 8th World Conference
on Health Promotion and Health Education scheduled from April
26 to 30 in Malaysia. MOLDOVA: Unbalanced Replacement Levels Interfax (Russia) reported January 20 that Moldova's
death rate was 13% higher than its birth rate in 2003, according
to the country's Statistics and Sociology Department. A total
of 37,000 children were born in Moldova last year, which is 2,000
more than in 2002. The department said that 43,004 people died
in Moldova last year, which is 2.9% more than in 2002. The UN
Population Fund has estimated that Moldova's population could
shrink by 750,000 people by 2005. Read: Interfax NEPAL: The Challenging Issue of Violence against Women In the January 23 issue of Nepal News, an opinion
piece by Dr. Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay noted that UNFPA recognizes
that ending gender-based violence will mean changing cultural
concepts about masculinity, and that process must actively engage
men, whether they are policy-makers, parents, spouses or young
boys. Read: Nepal News PAKISTAN: UNFPA to Fund Country Programme of Action Plan Daily Times (Pakistan) reported January
19 that UNFPA would draw an agreement with the government of Pakistan
to provide financial assistance worth $34.9 million to execute
a multi-faceted, four-year Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP),
Dr. Olivier Brasseur, the UNFPA country representative said. Read:
Daily Times UNITED STATES: What Has Ben Wattenberg Learned? In its “What have I learned section,” The
Washingtonian ran a story on UNFPA critic Ben Wattenberg
in its February 2004 issue. Wattenberg noted, “I'm a big admirer
of the demographers at the United Nations Population Division—they're
the Census Bureau on the world stage. But there are other UN organizations—the
United Nations Population Fund, for example, is always crying
about how the world's population is growing malignantly and will
continue to do so unless its division gets more funding.”
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