Declines in fertility levels evident in Africa,notes UN Population Fund

This article reports on the UN Population Fund's (UNFPA) African regional meeting that was held in November 1997. The meeting was attended by an assortment of UNFPA representatives and program staff. This meeting followed up the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and 1995 regional meetings on the 1994 Plan of Action. These prior meetings emphasized the link between population and development and the urgency of meeting the needs of individual women and men in a people-centered approach to development, rather than a target oriented one. The 1997 meeting reviewed the progress made toward achieving the goals of the 1994 plan of action by the UNFPA. UNFPA aims to decentralize operations, to play a role in emergency situations, to encourage South-to-South cooperation, to advocate for reproductive rights, and to promote gender equity and women's empowerment. The meeting discussed UNFPA's role in reproductive health, population and development strategies, and advocacy in detail. Participants agreed that there were signs of fertility decline in Africa. Countries are beginning to adopt a reproductive health and rights approach and to address female genital mutilation as a human and reproductive right's issue. Population policies are being changed to include ICPD goals. 32 countries adopted new programs in 1996 and 1997, that integrated the 1994 strategies and selectively focused on issues of concern. Partnerships confirm that population issues are becoming an agenda for all. The major challenge ahead is the mobilization of resources, while dealing with civil strife and political instability.     

"To change the world." Cairo conference reaches consensus on plan to stabilize world growth by 2015

After 6 days of debate and 200 speakers during September 5-13, 1994, participants from 180 countries at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agreed on a strategy for curbing global population growth over the next 20 years. The objective was sustained economic growth and sustainable development. In his opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said that the objective was to balance humanity and the environment with the means to sustain life, and that the efficacy of the world economic order depended to some extent on the ICPD. Participants were urged to use rigor, tolerance, and conscience in conference deliberations. Men and women should have the right and the means to choose their families' futures. The preamble stated that the ICPD would probably be the last opportunity in the twentieth century to address globally the issues relating to population and development. UN Population Fund Executive Director Nafis Sadik remarked that the ICPD had the potential to change the world. Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak was elected president of the ICPD. Mubarak stated that solutions to population problems must go beyond demographic accounting and incorporate change in social, economic, and cultural conditions. Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland stated that development in many countries never reached many women. She called it a hypocritical morality that allowed women to suffer and die from unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions, and miserable living conditions. US Vice President Albert Gore called for comprehensive and holistic solutions. The essential features of social change would involve democracy, economic reform, low rates of inflation, low levels of corruption, sound environmental management, free and open markets, and access to developed country markets. Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir urged the empowerment of women. Many expressed the concern about unsustainable consumption in industrialized countries. Prior world population conferences had been held in Rome (1954), Belgrade (1965), Bucharest (1974), and Mexico City (1984). The first World Plan of Action was adopted in 1974 and changed at the 1984 conference.     

Contesting ‘Global Sisterhood’: The Global Women's Health Movement,the United Nations and the Different Meanings of Reproductive Rights (1970s–80s)

The article contributes to a genealogy of the global articulation of reproductive rights principles, as established at the 1994 United Nations (UN) Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo and the UN Women's Conference held in Beijing the following year. It highlights the key role played by an emerging global women's health movement in the 1970s–80s, in shaping UN debates on family planning, women's rights in procreative choice and women's roles in socio-economic development. The article focuses on the International Campaign for Abortion, Sterilisation and Contraception (est. London 1978) and the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (Amsterdam and Manila 1984; ECOSOC consultative status in 1992). Adopting an intersectional perspective, the paper highlights the local embeddedness of feminist positions, the shortcomings of Western feminism and the ways in which conflicts between women's organisations allowed for an original and evolving concept of reproductive rights to emerge. It is based on UN papers and the archives of the above organisations and family planning movements.     

Programme of Action: raising resources

The International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) Program of Action comprehensively covers a wide range of demographic and social issues by setting goals to be achieved over a period of 20 years. Since its initial implementation, population issues have been fundamentally linked with the countries' prospects for sustainable development. In the ICPD+5 review it was concluded that countries are committed to the Cairo agenda and to the idea that population and development go hand in hand. This commitment involves spending on population and related programs, which totals $17 billion by the year 2000 and $22 billion by 2015. Funding would come from countries (0.7% of gross domestic product to overall development assistance and 4% to population activities). However, the trend shows that countries have not achieved these targets and are decreasing rather than increasing spending on population issues, particularly from the developed countries. Findings of a survey indicated that the lack of resources is the greatest obstacle in attaining desired goals of developing countries. In addition, serious economic stagnation and an unfavorable international economic environment makes it difficult for many developing countries to resolve the problem of lack of resources, and technical capabilities are badly needed to achieve the goals of the ICPD.     

One 6 and nine 0's

This article reports the proceedings of two population meetings: the UN meeting in New York and the Youth Forum. Representatives of UN Member States and 24 accredited nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) attended the 5-year review and appraisal of the Cairo Conference of 1994. A consensus on sex education was reached in the Special Summit. However, not all participants agreed on the relevance of the consensus in the summit for reasons that it is time-consuming and that there are more meaningful matters to be attended to. Meanwhile, in the Youth Forum held just before The Hague Forum of Governments, young people from all over the world were given the opportunity to express their opinions and say what they considered important to create a sustainable population and development. Their views were presented in a report to their national delegations and NGOs who will attend in The Hague. In the report, the youth stated that they hope their needs would be translated into practical national policies and legislation supporting young people's development and rights.     

Choices and responsibilities: finding the balance

Rapid population growth means the addition of a billion more people in 11 years. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), scheduled for September 5-13, 1994, will address the issue of population growth and design strategies for slower growth with economic development and environmental protection. This article summarizes Dr. Nafis Sadik's special preparatory message about the conference. The ICPD will address the issues of reproductive health, affordable family planning (FP), and informed choice. There will be an emphasis on better health care, housing, education, and other poverty alleviation measures. Empowerment of women through educational and economic opportunity and increased foreign aid are also themes. Improvements in the quality of life as well as demographic and social change are required. The key to slowing population growth is to meet the need for FP services to reduce fertility. Reexamination of the life-styles of the more affluent is also required. Needs and resources must be balanced. Sustainable development and resource use will depend upon slower population growth, more rational population distribution, alleviation of poverty, environmentally safer consumption patterns, and other measures. The 1994 draft plan of action has a broad mandate which recognizes the linkages between population and development. Target dates and reproductive rights language are bracketed and will be discussed during the conference. Quantitative goals are set for education, child and maternal mortality reduction, and universal access to FP and reproductive health services. The public should be made aware of the development and population links. Developing countries are asked to devote 20% of their government budget to social development. Countries by their action or inaction will choose a world population size in 2015 ranging from 7.27 to 7.92 billion. The difference of 660 million in 20 years is equal to the current population in Africa. The high projection for 2050 is 12.5 billion people. The ICPD will be the last global opportunity before the turn of the century to address the challenges of shared responsibility for the future of life on earth.     

Reproductive rights and health discussed

The 29th session of the UN Commission on Population and Development (February 26 to March 1, 1996) focused on reproductive health and rights, including population IEC (information, education, and communication). Speakers relayed national responses to the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, highlighted the critical role of nongovernmental organizations in meeting reproductive health needs through IEC and advocacy, and applauded the recent expansion of the Population Information Network. The Director of the UN's Population Division noted that in 1946, when the Commission was founded, the Division estimated that the world population would reach 6.3 billion in the year 2000. The latest estimate of 6.2 billion confirms this early estimate. Sensitive issues which the Commission expects to face in coming years are abortion, the aging of populations, HIV/AIDS, and international migration. The Executive Director of the UN Population Fund reported that guidelines are being developed on the quality of reproductive health care and that gender concerns are increasingly being included in program design and implementation. The Commission also considered the Secretary-General's January 15, 1996, report on world population monitoring, reproductive rights, and reproductive health. Finally, the Commission announced that Leticia Ramos-Shahani, an advocate from the Philippines, and Pathfinder International would share the 1996 Population Award.     

Population. The new challenge: translating Cairo success into meaningful activities

The newly named Commission on Population and Development, at its 1995 session in New York, stated it should have the primary responsibility for reviewing the implementation of the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in September 1994. The Population Commission was renamed the Commission on Population and Development by the General Assembly. In debate, some countries reviewed their national experiences in population matters, stressing how the Program of Action would influence their policies. At mid-1994, world population stood at 5.63 billion persons, a report on world population trends and policies revealed. During the preceding 12 months, population had grown by 86 million and was expected to grow by an additional 87 million during the next 12 months. While China's representative described a near-crisis situation marked by a net increase in population of 14 million per year in her country, the representative of the Russian Federation expressed concern over the decrease in Russia's population. Between 1990 and 1994, world population had grown at 1.57% per annum. UN medium-fertility-variant projections indicated that the population growth rate would continue declining to 1.33% per annum between 2000 and 2010; 1.15% in 2010-2020; 0.95% in 2020-2030; 0.72% in 2030-2040; and 0.54% in 2040-2050. Consequently, the world population was projected to reach 7.5 billion by 2015 and 9.8 billion by 2050. Assistance for population programs had increased from $220 million in 1988 to $305 million in 1992, the bulk of which came from UNFPA. Family planning, integrated with reproductive health and carried out through a primary health care system, continued to receive the bulk of multilateral resources. Projects to improve the status of women, such as education for girls, leadership training, literacy programs, and projects designed to increase the income of women and their families were being supported by multilateral agencies. An update on global contraceptive requirements from 1994 to 2005 estimated that the total cost of contraceptive commodities would be $7.7 billion.     

Sale of children must be eliminated. Development and gender issues stressed

Meeting for 6 weeks, the 53-member UN Commission on Human Rights adopted more than 83 resolutions and 14 decisions, the majority by consensus. Among its measures, the commission called for the creation of an open-ended working group to develop policy guidelines for economic structural adjustment programs and their effects upon economic, social, and cultural rights; and the holding of a seminar of experts to develop guidelines on the subject of forced evictions. This report offers a round-up of action with regard to children's rights and abuse, gender issues, the right of people to development, country situations, hostages, indigenous and minority issues, and follow-up to the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights. Children are being sold for prostitution, pornography, and adoption at an increasing rate worldwide. The commission has therefore called upon governments to take legislative, social, and educational measures to ensure the protection of children from exploitation. Deeply concerned by the persistence of such violations, the commission recommended that states adopt measures to eliminate the existing market for such practices, and asked the group drafting a related optional protocol to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child to continue its work. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will provide substantive support to the World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, to be held in Stockholm in August.     

Population: action for a new decade

This 48-page supplement reports on the world popultion situation and on the International Conference on Population held in Mexico City in 1984. Included are summaries of Conference recommendations, the text of the Mexico City Declaration on Population and Development, a World Population Chart, and reports on population studies. The main task of the 1984 Population Conference was to review the 1974 World Population Plan of Action and approve steps to update some of its goals in line with new issues that have emerged in recent years. The preamble to the 1984 recommendations states that the basis for an effective solution to population problems is socioeconomic transformation. It is noted, however, that even in the absence of socioeconomic development, family planning programs can have an impact on fertility levels. This report futher describes the debate on disarmament, abortion, economic policy, and occupied territories that took place in Mexico City. Also included is a glossary of terms used in population studies and a discussion on how the United Nations determines its demographic projections.     

Empowering women: an essential objective

The draft action plan of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) calls for enhancing women's participation in all levels of the political process and public life, promoting women's education and employment with attention to alleviation of poverty and illiteracy, halting discriminatory practices against women, establishing women's rights, and improving women's ability to earn income and achieve economic self-reliance. The document specifically refers to the importance of girls beyond their traditional roles as potential childbearers and caretakers. The action plan requests actions to enforce minimum marriage age laws and to assure women's choice in spouse selection. Female genital mutilation is prohibited. Preventive efforts are to be directed to infanticide, prenatal sex selection, trafficking in girls, female prostitution, and pornography. The men who are in positions of power have a particular responsibility to bring about gender equality and to focus on men's responsibility in parenthood and child support. Fertility is related to women's paid employment and higher educational levels. The longterm success of population programs is dependent on women's ability to make informed decisions at all levels and in all spheres of life.     

The Security Council: Behind the Scenes

Following the publication of the various enquiries into the circumstances of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, there has developed a view that the UN lacks the ability to manage complex missions. With particular reference to the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), the author pays special attention to the oversight of peacekeeping missions and the crucial role of the UN Security Council, the Secretary General and senior officials in the Secretariat and asks whether the Council is sufficiently equipped at ambassadorial level to address professional military issues. Does the Council have a right and a duty to know the details of peacekeeping missions in order to take decisions? A culture of secrecy has developed in the Security Council and it is common practice now for the Council's important debates to be held in secret. This means that its decision‐making is unaccountable. The author also questions the lack of enquiry into British policy towards Rwanda in the Security Council between 1993 and 1994.     

Women endangered,says world population report

This report highlights key points from the UN Population Fund's "State of World Population 1997," which focused on women's right to choose in matters relating to reproductive health. The report documents global progress toward achieving reproductive rights for women and recommends more funding for reproductive health care and family planning and increased efforts to promote gender equality and individual rights. International agreements protect: the right to reproductive and sexual health throughout the life cycle; voluntary choice in marriage and childbearing and the means to determine when to have children; equality and equity in all spheres for men and women; and freedom from sexual violence and coercion. When these rights are denied, the result is maternal mortality (a death every minute). There is a lack of access to contraceptive services that affect 350 million women. Unsafe abortions are performed on 20 million women, of whom 70,000 die. There is a lack of access to sex education and services for teenagers that results in HIV infections and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 1.5 million die from HIV/AIDS related causes, and another 1 million die from reproductive tract infections and STDs. Teenagers represent about 50% of the 333 million new cases of HIV and STDs that occur each year. Female genital mutilation is performed on 120 million girls and women, and 2 million are at risk each year. 2 million girls aged 5-15 years enter the commercial sex trade each year. The report documents the suffering from anemia and malnutrition and complications from pregnancy.     

The UN and the African Union in Mali and beyond: a shotgun wedding?

The United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) have collaborated in building a viable African Peace and Security Architecture and have worked together in a number of armed conflicts over the past decade. Examples include the peace operations in Burundi and Somalia, and the hybrid peace operation in Sudan's Darfur region which is perhaps the most prominent illustration of this collaboration. Although the UN Security Council authorized the intervention in Libya, which was approved by leading regional organizations (the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council), it was opposed initially by the AU although the three African states in the Security Council voted for it. Relations cooled as a result and have grown colder still as the UN snubbed the AU and its initial efforts to engage in post‐conflict stabilization in Mali. While the AU sought to prove itself as a capable security provider and partner on the continent with its operation AFISMA, France's Opération Serval and the UN's peace operation for Mali, MINUSMA, bypassed the African Union. This article explores the underlying fault‐lines between the two organizations by examining interactions between the UN and AU since the latter's launch in 2002, but focusing on the Mali case. The fault‐lines emerging from the analysis are different capabilities, risk‐averse vs risk‐assuming approaches to casualties, diverging geopolitics and leadership rivalry.     

Habitat II: city summit to forge the future of human settlements in an urbanizing world

Half of the world's population will be living in cities by the year 2000. 40% of urban residents worldwide, however, do not have access to safe drinking water or adequate sanitation and more than 60% of urban residents in some areas live in poverty. Unemployment, homelessness, growing insecurity, rising pollution, and increasing vulnerability to disaster abound in cities. To discuss what can be done to cope with the overwhelming tide of urbanization, UN Member States will convene in Istanbul during June 3-14, 1996, for the second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II). This paper describes advances since the first UN Conference on Human Settlements held in Vancouver in 1976, the aims of Habitat II, urbanization, the Habitat agenda, new partnerships, best practices, final preparations, goals and principles, commitments and action, and ten policies capable of making a difference with regard to sustainable human settlements.     

Palestinian Water: Resources,Use, Conservation,Climate Change,and Land Use

This article addresses the future of freshwater resources in the Palestinian West Bank through a discussion of contemporary issues that each plays a vital role in determining the long‐term sustainability of freshwater reserves, such as water resource availability, trans‐boundary water issues, water reuse and conservation, changes in land use, and the potential impact of climate change on long‐term water management. Climate change and changing land use patterns are already altering this region's water resources. Future predictions regarding the long‐term effects of these changes are complex and therefore inherently uncertain. However, the consensus among most studies on this subject indicates that currently water‐poor regions such as the Middle East will experience even greater water stress in the future. Nearly all of the freshwater consumed in the West Bank is obtained from local groundwater supplies that are suffering overdraft as well as decreasing water quality. Climate change will exacerbate water stress by increasing overall temperatures, decreasing and fluctuating precipitation, and reducing overall aquifer replenishment. Expanding urbanization will continue to strain freshwater supplies by negatively impacting the quality and quantity of available freshwater. Water management in the West Bank is further complicated by total Israeli control over water resources, which often causes water delivery to Palestinians in this region to be marginalized. This article finds that Palestinian and Israeli water managers must plan for future water crises, which will likely be a result of the combined effects of increasing urbanization and climate change coupled with exponential population growth.     

Economic and Social Thinking at the UN in Historical Perspective

This article begins to examine the history of economic and social ideas launched or nurtured by the United Nations (UN). In 1999, the United Nations Intellectual History Project was initiated, to analyse the UN as an intellectual actor, and to shed light on the role of the UN system in creating knowledge and in influencing international policy‐making: this article is based on the first five books and the oral histories from that Project. The starting point is that ideas may be the most important legacy of the UN for human rights, economic and social development, as well as for peace and security. For the authors, this ‘intellectual history’ provides a way to explore the origins of particular ideas; trace their course within institutions, scholarship, and discourse; and in some cases evaluate the impact of ideas on policy and action.     

East Timor and the new humanitarian interventionism

The fate of East Timor provides a barometer for how far the normative structure of international society has been transformed since the end of the Cold War. In 1975, the East Timorese were abandoned by a Western bloc that placed accommodating the Indonesian invasion of the island before the protection of human rights. Twenty‐five years later, it was the protection of the civilian population on the island that loomed large in the calculations of these same states. Australia, which had sacrificed the rights of the people of East Timor on the altar of good relations with Indonesia, found itself leading an intervention force that challenged the old certainties of its ‘Jakarta first’ policy. The article charts the interplay of domestic and international factors that made this normative transformation possible. The authors examine the political and economic factors that led to the agreement in May 1999 between Portugal, Indonesia and the UN to hold a referendum on the future political status of East Timor. A key question is whether the international community should have done more to assure the security of the ballot process. The authors argue that while more could have been done by Australia, the United States and officials in the UN Secretariat to place this issue on the Security Council's agenda, it is highly unlikely that the international community would have proved capable of mobilizing the political will necessary to coerce Indonesia into accepting a peacekeeping force. The second part of the article looks at how the outbreak of the violence in early September 1999 fundamentally changed these political assumptions. The authors argue that it became politically possible to employ coercion against Indonesian sovereignty in a context in which the Habibie government was viewed as having failed to exercise sovereignty with responsibility. By focusing on the economic and military sanctions employed by Western states, the pressures exerted by the international financial institutions and the intense diplomatic activity at the UN and in Jakarta, the authors show how Indonesian political and military leaders were prevailed upon to accept an international force. At the same time, Australian reporting of the atrocities and how this prompted the Howard government to an intervention that challenged traditional conceptionsof Australia's vital interests, is considered. The conclusion reflects on how thiscase supports the claim that traditional notions of sovereignty are increasinglyconstrained by norms of humanitarian responsibility.     

International sustainable development policy: (re)producing sexual norms through eco-discipline

This article contends that the global thrust towards population management, legitimised by the concept of sustainable development, works to construct identities along the lines of gender and sexuality. This article focuses on the operation of what Foucault termed, biopower, as operational through and (re)productive of the United Nation's (UN) population/sustainable development discourses. I argue that the said disciplinary narratives and apparatuses such as the construction of environmental threat and the monitoring and regulating of populations, in the service of sustainable development, work to construct gendered identities and ‘naturalise’ heterosexual relationships. To demonstrate this, this article focuses on key UN documents directed at informing international environmental/population policy, namely Agenda 21 and the International Conference on Polulation and Development's Programme of Action.     

In Uganda,elders work with the UN to safeguard women's health

This article reports on the 1998 UN population award that was given to Uganda's Sabiny Elders Association (SEA) for its work in combatting female circumcision (FC) among the Sabiny people in Eastern Uganda's Kapchorwa district. The elders aimed at documenting local history and preserving the rich cultural heritage of Sabiny society while promoting changes in various cultural traditions that were inconsistent with modern ways of living. They also aimed to promote education especially among girls, to protect the region's environment and wildlife, and to develop its traditional medicine. Helping the victims of HIV/AIDS was a part of their goals. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) launched its REACH program in Kapchorwa to assist the Sabiny community in bringing about its own social change and to join with them in eliminating FC, in 1996. A more appropriate ritual for ushering a girl into womanhood is being contemplated.