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POPULATION: A Giant Leap From Rhetoric to Reality?

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 12 2005 (IPS) - The largest gathering of world leaders meeting at the United Nations last month declared that the international community must keep gender equality, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health at the top of the global agenda over the next decade.

“This resolve,” says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA),”is a success for millions of women, men and young people all over the world, whose appeals have been heard.”

But how wide is the gap between what is pledged and what is eventually delivered to the world’s poorer nations?

“We must focus our energy on fulfilling the commitments made by world leaders,” Obaid told IPS. “And that means increasing investments in women and young people in their education, economic opportunities, human rights and reproductive health.”

If world leaders keep their promises, Obaid said, “We can free hundreds of millions of people from poverty, spare the lives of 30 million children and two million mothers, and reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS – all in the next decade.”

But in its 119-page annual report released Wednesday, UNFPA points out that the international community, both donors and developing countries, did not meet even the 2000 target of 17 billion dollars.

The costed components included programmes in reproductive health, family planning, maternal health and prevention of HIV/AIDS.

“They were still lagging behind in 2003 and it is still uncertain whether the target of 18.5 billion dollars for 2005 will be reached,” said the report, titled “The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals”.

Preliminary data show that donors mobilised about 4.7 billion dollars, or 77 percent of their one-third share of the target agreed for 2005. Developing countries mobilised about 11 billion dollars or 88 percent of their corresponding share.

“Narrower funding gaps could have saved and improved millions of lives in the past 10 years,” the report added.

In contrast, global military spending in 2003 was about one trillion dollars compared with only 69 billion dollars for development aid.

The cost of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is estimated at 135 billion dollars in 2006 and 195 billion dollars by 2015. “All of the MDGs could be accomplished with a fraction of what the world spends for military purposes,” the report noted.

The MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; environmental sustainability; the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and a global partnership for development, between rich and poor. The deadline to achieve these targets is 2015.

Jessica Neuwirth, president of the international rights group Equality Now, is sceptical. She points out that gender equality and the empowerment of women have long been recognised as a key cornerstone to sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.

“Our ongoing concern is the gap between rhetoric and reality, and the lack of political will among governments to ensure implementation of commitments made in the United Nations,” Neuwirth told IPS.

Since 1999, she said, Equality Now has been highlighting expressly discriminatory laws in countries around the world and calling for their repeal or amendment as agreed in the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995.

In 2000, a target date of 2005 was adopted for these reforms, but of the laws highlighted by Equality Now in 52 countries, as part of its ongoing campaign, only 16 of these countries have changed their laws.

“What happens when the target dates are not met?” she asked. “There is no mechanism for accountability, and that is what we feel is most needed right now in the context of both the Millennium Development Goals and the Beijing Platform for Action.”

Werner Fornos, president of the Population Institute, was equally doubtful about the international community reaching funding targets.

“Gender equity and reproductive health are indispensable to the realization of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals,” Fornos told IPS.

But universal education for girls and women, as well as meaningful access to reproductive health information and services, require the investment of scarce resources well beyond what any world leader has been committed to thus far.

“Unless these resources become available, the world will fall miserably short of achieving the MDGs by 2015,” he warned.

This certainly applies to the goal of significant reductions in maternal and child mortality and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.

Pushing “abstinence-only” programmes without a commitment to preventive health, such as accelerated distribution of condoms and other voluntary family planning services, is “nothing more than empty public relations blather, buncombe and babble,” Fornos added.

Meanwhile, the UNFPA report also said that more than 1.7 billion women worldwide are in their reproductive and productive years, between the ages of 15 and 49.

“Targeted investments in their education, reproductive health, economic opportunity and political rights can spur growth and sustainable development for generations to come.”

Obaid of UNFPA told IPS that the world leaders’ resolve to bring reproductive health-to-all has confirmed the vision of the agenda adopted at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.

“UNFPA looks forward to working with governments to expand access to comprehensive reproductive health services such as family planning, skilled attendance at birth, emergency obstetric care and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,” she added.

Another significant result was the leaders’ resolve to eliminate pervasive gender discrimination, “declaring progress for women is progress for all”, Obaid said.

Anika Rahman, president of Americans for UNFPA, singled out Washington for criticism, saying: “We feel that the U.S. government has turned its back on the world’s women.”

She said that by blocking funding for UNFPA for four years, the current U.S. administration has shown its disregard for the health and rights of the millions of women in the over 140 countries in which UNFPA works.

“The United States has also attempted to turn back all the progress that has been made internationally in securing women’s access to contraception and other reproductive health services including HIV prevention – the kinds of services that save lives and help women participate more fully in society,” Rahman told IPS.

“Our hope for a concrete commitment from the U.S. government for women’s health and equality remains unfulfilled,” she added.