UNFPA
Pushing
for Hundreds of Billions for Family Planning
NEW YORK, NY - At the United Nations this week, the UN Population Fund
(UNFPA) organized a commemorative seminar on the 1995 Cairo
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and, in a
look ahead, urged states to renew their commitment to the program,
calling for over $200 billion (US) in funding for "sexual and
reproductive health and family planning" alone.
UNFPA's Ann Pawliczko gave a financial perspective of the ICPD Program
of Action and presented a "revised ICPD Global Cost Estimate" for 2009
through 2015, when the ICPD program is scheduled to end. Apart
from
$212 billion (US) for "sexual and reproductive health / family
planning," UNFPA estimates that another $22.5 billion would be needed
for "family planning direct costs" for the same time period.
At the seminar, attended by less than 80 individuals representing
government delegations and civil society, panelists presented a
retrospective of the "groundbreaking" ICPD conference and sought to
outline a way forward. Claiming that with only five years left to
fulfill the commitments made at the ICPD and achieve the interrelated
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), "governments are called upon to
redouble their efforts toward the integration of population and
development policies."
Opening the seminar, Dr. Werner Haug, UNFPA's Technical Division
director, acknowledged that population has always been a "thorny and
difficult" topic and that countries must now decide how to proceed
after the Cairo Program of Action expires at the end of 2014.
Dr. Stan Bernstein, a UNFPA senior policy advisor, called the Cairo
consensus "novel" for its person-centered approach rather than just on
numbers and demographics and praised the Cairo's reframing of
population programs to a "customized approach" which seeks to provide
couples and individuals with the means to achieve a smaller family
size.
Hania Zlotnik of the UN Population Division emphasized the alleged
benefits of population reduction, touting that declining fertility "has
potentially positive effects on economic growth" such as a reduced
number of dependents, an increased number of workers, particularly more
women workers since they are having less children. Zlotnik
lamented
that funding for family planning was on the decline and warned that
"the reproductive health of women and couples cannot be assured if
women don't have the means to control their fertility."
Laura Laski, another UNFPA representative, focused solely on
"reproductive rights and universal access to sexual and reproductive
health." Laski lauded the progress made since the Cairo
conference and
highlighted the linkage to the MDGs. Laski pointed to the controversial
MDG target on "universal access to reproductive health by 2015" as the
new "center point" for future work on "sexual and reproductive health."
(Pro-life critics note that states rejected a separate goal on
"reproductive health" in 2001, only to see it reappear as a "target" in
the annex of a Secretary-General's report in 2007.)
Panelists concluded that the "chief constraint" to realizing the Cairo
program of action is the "lack of adequate funding" and urged states to
increase their political will, renew their Cairo commitment and
"increase allocations for population activities" as a matter of
priority.
The UNFPA seminar was co-organized by UNITAR, the UN Institute for
Training and Research, as part of the UN's celebration of the ICPD 15th
anniversary.
This article reprinted by LifeSiteNews.com with permission from www.c-fam.org.
Contact: Samantha
Singson
Source:
C-FAM/LifesiteNews.com
Publish
Date:
December 3, 2009
Link
to
this
article.
Send
this
article
to a friend.
The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in
Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state
coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of
Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our
society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political
persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic
backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has
been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the
human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that
every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is
dedicated to restoring the right to life to the unborn, and protection
for the disabled and the elderly. Click here to learn more about the IFRL.