UNFPA Re-affirms its Commitment to the Family as the Basic Unit of Society

UNITED NATIONS, New York—The 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) underscored the importance of families as “central to human societies.” The family is the “basic unit that reproduces and generates norms, values and regulations enabling societal life and creating wealth and knowledge that contribute to the collective well being,” according to Aminata Toure, advisor on gender, culture and human rights at UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Speaking at a panel marking the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family on 6 December, Ms. Toure highlighted the critical role that families play in providing material and emotional support, security and happiness to its members. As a way of enforcing that role and empowering every single family member, she added, UNFPA works to “strengthen capacities of families to overcome barriers and minimize lost opportunities posed by gender discrimination, marginalization of young people, poverty and limited access to social services, including sexual and reproductive health service.”

Yesterday’s panel, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, was organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Committee on the Family, a New York-based non-governmental organization. Other speakers included Ana Teresa Aranda, Director-General for the Mexican System of Integral Development of the Family; Edwin Judd, Director of Programme Division at UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF); Mark Belsey, author of a forthcoming publication on "AIDS and the Family: Policy Options for a Crisis in Family Capital;" and Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Riverside.

In a related development, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan marked the anniversary of the International Year of the Family at a special session of the General Assembly by calling on governments to integrate family concerns with broader development and poverty eradication efforts. On her part, UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said that governments and civil society alike should "work harder to strengthen the capacity of families and all of its members to overcome constraints posed by poverty and decreased access to public social services, including sexual and reproductive health.”

She added that this is "very important so that women, individuals and couples can decide about the number and timing of their children, exercise their human rights and have a voice in family decisions to benefit all family members."