Press Release
Population at Core of Development, Will Help Combat Poverty, Protect Environment, Says Latest UN Expert Report
10 September 2005
UNITED NATIONS, New York — On the eve of the largest gathering of world leaders in history, a new United Nations report provides further evidence that investing in the health and rights of women and stopping HIV/AIDS will help the world reduce poverty and promote development, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, said today.
The Fund was commenting on the report entitled, Population Challenges and Development Goals, issued today by the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat. Concluding that “population is at the core of development”, the report says that helping women and men have the number of children they desire would slow population growth, which would help “to combat poverty, to protect and repair the environment, and to set the conditions for sustainable development”.
Population Challenges says that full implementation of the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development would contribute significantly to achieving universally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration.
“Just before they meet next week, world leaders have yet another piece of expert evidence that investing in the rights and health of men, women and youth, will reap significant rewards in prosperity, peace and security,” said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. “I am confident our leaders will show that they have heard the experts, and, most importantly, the cry of the world’s poor and vulnerable women, men and young people. I am confident that the largest gathering of world leaders in history will respond: ‘We Hear You All.’”
“We should come away from the 2005 World Summit emboldened to take more urgent action to promote access to reproductive health and to fight HIV/AIDS to save millions of lives from AIDS and maternal death,” said Ms. Obaid. “The world’s leaders have the power to make decisions to achieve the development goals by 2015. And the issues of population, gender, and reproductive health are critical to the Summit’s larger development, security and human rights agenda.”
On maternal health, Population Challenges says: “A key preventive measure to reduce a woman’s lifetime probability of dying from pregnancy-related causes is to ensure access to family planning to avoid unwanted pregnancies. In addition, the presence of a trained attendant at delivery and access to emergency obstetric care are essential to preventing deaths occurring because of complications during delivery.”
Population Challenges says that both the Cairo Programme and the MDGs call for gender equality and women’s empowerment, “recognizing that both are important in combating poverty, hunger and disease and in achieving sustainable development”.
Turning to adolescents, Population Challenges reports that the implementation of the Cairo Programme can help reduce poverty by preventing teenage pregnancy, reducing maternal death and slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS. It says: “Single adolescent women who become pregnant are more likely to drop out of school, thus compromising their future earning capacity and becoming more likely to end in poverty. Maternal mortality and the mortality of parents due to HIV/AIDS often lead to or exacerbate poverty.”
Support for measures to prevent maternal death and HIV/AIDS as well as to promote gender equality and the health of more than 1.3 billion adolescents are central objectives of UNFPA.
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UNFPA is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. The Fund supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
Contact Information:
Kristin Hetle
Tel.: +1 212-297-5020
Email: hetle@unfpa.org
Omar Gharzeddine
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5028
Email: gharzeddine@unfpa.org
Abubakar Dungus
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5031
Email: dungus@unfpa.org
