Population Awareness Leader Werner Fornos and Family Planning Association of Kenya Win 2003 United Nations Population Award

NEW YORK – Population awareness advocate Werner Fornos and the Family Planning Association of Kenya have been named winners of the 2003 United Nations Population Award. Mr. Fornos is the President of the United States-based Population Institute.

The Committee for the United Nations Population Award presents the award annually to individuals and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to increasing the awareness of population problems and to their solutions. The Committee is made up of Member States of the United Nations. UNFPA serves as secretariat to the Committee.

The Award Committee selected the winners after reviewing nominations received from around the world, said Ambassador Jean Claude Alexandre of Haiti, the Chairman of the Committee. Each winner will receive a certificate, a gold medal and an equal share of a monetary prize at a ceremony in June at United Nations Headquarters, New York.

Mr. Fornos, a United States national, is the winner in the individual category. Since 1982, he has been the President of the Population Institute, which is primarily devoted to creating materials and techniques to increase awareness of population growth and family planning programmes. “It is difficult to think of one person who has done more to ensure that issues of population remain at the forefront of public and governmental discourse,” according to the nomination of Mr. Fornos to the Committee.

Mr. Fornos is a tireless and very engaging speaker, making as many as 75 presentations a year. As President of the Population Institute, he established the publications Popline and Towards the 21st Century, which are widely used throughout the world. He has been a successful advocate of population funding in the United States.

The Family Planning Association of Kenya will receive the award in the institutional category. Founded in 1962 as a volunteer-based non-governmental organization, it has pioneered the family planning movement in Kenya, promoting the provision of sexual and reproductive health services within the context of reproductive rights and the empowerment of young people, according to the nomination of the Association.

The Association was an early advocate for gender equality and equal rights, the eradication of female genital cutting and the discouragement of early marriage. It also took the lead in transforming Kenya’s family planning programme from a vertical, Nairobi-based model to a more community-based, participatory one, reaching the local and regional levels. That made the programme one of the first in the world to experiment with community-based distribution of contraceptives.

In addition to services for married couples, the Association was a leader in extending sexual and reproductive health services to unmarried adolescents. It also began targeting males in family planning 20 years before that approach was identified as a key component of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994).

From a few committed individuals when it started, the Family Planning Association of Kenya now has a staff of more than 5,000.

The Committee for the United Nations Population Award is made up of representatives of Member States elected by the Economic and Social Council for terms of three years. Current members are Burundi, Cape Verde, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Republic of Moldova and the Netherlands. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, serve as ex-officio members.

There were 17 nominations for the 2003 award, including nine individuals and eight institutions. Nominations can be made by Member States; intergovernmental organizations engaged in population-related activities; population related non-governmental organizations having consultative status with the United Nations; university professors of population or related studies; heads of population-related institutions; and past laureates.

Contact Information:

Abubakar Dungus
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5031
Email: dungus@unfpa.org