| Partnerships and
Participation The five-year review of ICPD has referred at all points
to the importance of partnership in reaching its goals.
Governments were responsible for the ICPD consensus, but parliamentarians, the private
sector, and non-governmental organizations played an important part. NGOs and
civil-society groups involved in the review process included development agencies,
women’s groups, health and youth advocates, religious groups, professional
associations, indigenous people’s organizations, and community groups.
As countries have moved to implement the ICPD Programme of Action, the involvement of
civil society has increased. More than 40 countries have formal mechanisms to bring NGOs
into policy discussions, and many more have informal mechanisms.13
Some concerns remain. Many NGOs are relatively small, under-financed and dependent on
external technical and financial resources, and there are sometimes doubts about whose
interests they represent. NGOs may raise awkward questions which may be interpreted as
attacks on national development policy rather than constructive criticism.
These are legitimate concerns, but the review recognized that they should be confronted
and mechanisms established for cooperation among government officials, private-sector
representatives and other civil-society organizations. The comparative advantages and
potential of different organizations need to be better explored and utilized.
Civil-society organizations are a valuable resource for mobilizing national efforts to
advocate for and implement the Programme of Action.
Involvement of NGOs and the private sector is particularly important because of the
changing role of governments as providers of basic social services. A growing number of
countries are adopting decentralized management and decision-making. The involvement of
grass-roots organizations will be essential to provide a voice, information and services
to communities, and to people — the poor, the unmarried, and young people without
parents, for example — who might otherwise be marginalized or forgotten. NGOs also do
valuable work in providing assistance in times of crisis or disaster, supplying the needs
and representing the interests of the victims.
Governments need to make a positive decision to engage communities and their
representatives in discussion about population and development issues. This choice can
preserve and protect the valuable aspects of tradition and culture while jettisoning
harmful and risky practices. The positive results of dialogue and collaboration can be
seen in the progress made by the Sabiny Elders Association in the Kapchorwa district of
Uganda in replacing female genital mutilation with a ceremony welcoming young girls into
the society as adults.14
International assistance for population
and reproductive health
is far short of developing countries’ needs.
Improvements in participation and information stimulate each other. The cost of making
information available can be low with a balanced plan of mass media and more local
communication. When information and communication are designed to generate behaviour
change as well as raise awareness, they can stimulate demand for quality and
accountability in service delivery.15
Reaching the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action will require partnerships
representing a wide range of interests, perspectives and development aims, including
reproductive health and rights. Civil society has a part to play in policy formulation and
programme implementation. Its groups address diverse concerns and their range of
experience and interests can encourage progress in relatively neglected areas such as
addressing gender violence, ensuring reproductive rights, adapting societies to changing
age structures, changing unsustainable patterns of resource use, coping with migration and
promoting gender equality. Civic groups with an interest in different issues share a
common interest in accelerating social and economic development and need responsive public
institutions to be most effective.
The Question of Resources
Partnership has an international dimension. Cooperation among industrial and developing
countries is critical to the successful implementation of ICPD.
The ICPD Programme of Action spelled out the resources needed for a basic package of
reproductive health and population programmes. It also indicated where investment was
needed to empower women, reduce mortality and morbidity, and provide basic education
(particularly of girls and women).
The financial constraints on the implementation of the Programme of Action are severe
and have worsened over time. Developing countries and countries with economies in
transition have had difficulty finding the necessary resources from their own budgets, and
development cooperation has also fallen short. A few developed countries — including
Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden — are meeting the internationally agreed
target level for development assistance of 0.7 per cent of gross national product; others
like the United Kingdom have promised to do so. But some of the biggest donor countries
— including Germany and the United States — remain far below the target.
Governments negotiated specific agreements at the ICPD, including estimates of the
levels of national and international resources required to implement the consensus. They
now face critical decisions about whether they will commit the necessary resources to
realize their vision. It was estimated that $17 billion would be required annually by the
year 2000 for the successful implementation of a basic integrated package of population
and reproductive health activities. It was further estimated that about one third ($5.7
billion) of the resources would be supplied to countries through external assistance and
about two thirds ($11.3 billion) would be mobilized within the countries themselves.
As of 1997, industrial countries had reached $1.9-2.0 billion, and developing countries
about $7.7 billion. There was no expectation of improvement in 1998, implying that the
goal for the year 2000 would be missed by a wide margin.
In human terms, these shortfalls imply that women will continue to endure unwanted
pregnancy, or resort to abortion; that they will continue to die as a result of their
pregnancy; that their children will still be at risk; that HIV/AIDS will continue its
rapid spread; and that progress towards human rights and equality in health care will be
slower than ever.
While development assistance from industrial countries has fallen, emergency needs and
allocations to disaster relief and peace-keeping missions have rapidly increased. It is
clear to all that effective development assistance will prevent many disasters and
emergencies, and that the long-term cost will be lower. But despite all urging and the
commitment of many countries, the will to move from perception to action has not yet
seized the biggest donors.
At the same time, private-sector institutions and foundations in donor countries,
especially the United States, are playing a larger role. The United Nations Foundation for
International Partnership, the Packard Foundation and others have committed over $500
million to support projects during the next five years. Over $7 billion has been added to
the William H. Gates Foundation endowment to support a range of health and development
initiatives. These new sources of assistance make important contributions in specific
areas, but they are not a substitute for national commitment to international development.
BOX
5
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UNFPA: Building the Consensus
When the United Nations Fund for PopulAtion Activities (UNFPA, later renamed the United
Nations Population Fund) started operations in 1969, population in the United Nations
system was a matter of demographic enquiry, under the United Nations Population Division.
It was barely possible to discuss population activities at the international level. By
1966, only 26 developing countries had national family planning programmes or substantial
government support for family planning, and only a small minority of people outside the
richer countries knew anything about family planning.
Population growth was at what proved to be a historic peak of 2 per cent a year, 2.5
per cent in developing countries; and total fertility in developing countries was also at
its highest level, about six children per woman. There was a great deal of doubt among
experts in the field whether family planning could be successfully promoted in developing
countries, or that family planning programmes would help to bring population growth rates
down. There were few women’s health programmes unconnected with childbirth or child
health.
UNFPA began its work as it has continued ever since, with a process of dialogue.
Finding that African countries, for example, were interested mainly in collecting
population data and building up the expertise to analyse it, UNFPA supported the United
Nations Census Programme in over 30 countries, helping 21 countries take a population
census for the first time. Latin American countries were concerned with building
demographic information into development planning, and UNFPA supported the regional centre
for demographic research, CELADE. In Asia, where there was a great deal of official
interest in family planning, UNFPA supported its integration in governments’ mother
and child health-care programmes, and encouraged innovative organizations like the
national family planning associations. Many UNFPA-funded projects were carried out by its
partners in the United Nations system, building expertise and understanding of population
and development.
By the time of the World Population Conference in 1974, UNFPA had established its
global presence, with $52 million in resources and programmes in 97 countries.
The Conference was the first of its kind at ministerial level, and the World Population
Plan of Action agreed there was the first political consensus on action in population and
development. UNFPA, under its first Executive Director, Rafael Salas, played an important
part in this process, having established its position as a trusted partner in countries of
all ideological positions.
UNFPA understood early on that women’s rights and status were not only important
in themselves but would be critical to the success of population and development policies
and programmes. Under the first Chief of its Programme Division, Dr. Nafis Sadik, later
Executive Director, women’s organizations were welcomed as partners of UNFPA, and
governments were urged to involve them in the development process.
UNFPA’s partnerships with donor and developing countries helped to demonstrate
that population was a "programmable" part of development strategy, and that
population assistance could be effectively delivered without ideological connotations and
in conformity with sovereign countries’ priorities and values. These understandings
have been critical in building today’s global consensus. |
It was fundamental to the consensus of ICPD that well-managed
investments in long-term development help to build the capacity to manage development and
encourage self-reliance, forestalling the conditions that lead to national instability and
insecurity.16
Expanding the level and variety of committed resources and better managing their use is
an urgent priority. New efforts for better coordination among donors and with governments
and civil-society institutions show promise; these include South-South cooperation, the
20/20 Initiative, and the Asia Initiative undertaken by the European Union in cooperation
with UNFPA (see Chapter 4).
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