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Commission on Population and Development Opens 35th Session
Focus on reproductive rights and health with special reference to HIV/AIDS.
April 1 - The Commission on Population and Development today opened its thirty-fifth session in New York, focusing on reproductive rights and reproductive health, with special reference to HIV/AIDS. The session will last through 5 April.
In opening remarks, Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said reproductive rights, as defined by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, were basic human rights. The fact that the world’s population had not grown as fast as had been expected was an affirmation of the vision and success of the Cairo agenda. The slowdown in population growth did not mean, however, that efforts for population and reproductive health could slow down. While people were ageing, the world had more young people than ever before. The world was faced with a paradox; the need for reproductive health services was great and growing, and the funding for such services was declining.
To address those needs, the UNFPA had spearheaded a global campaign for reproductive health essentials, she said. The ICPD $5.7 billion financial target was far from being met, and more resources were urgently needed if its goals were to be achieved. She hoped the recent Conference on Financing for Development would result in greater funding for reproductive health, which was so crucial to women, families and sustainable development.
Comparing population estimates to weather forecasts, Joseph Chamie, Director of the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said that the extended long-term population projections remained unsettled. While for some areas it was “partly sunny”, unstable conditions were expected to persist in many regions for some time. Scattered clouds were also forming on the horizon due to intensifying ageing, mortality disturbances and migration streams. The Commission had kept the international community visibly mobilized and committed to addressing population and development issues, and that tradition needed to continue into the twenty-first century.
Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed the interconnection between the agendas of the Commission and such other United Nations bodies as the Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission on Sustainable Development. One prominent issue of the current session was how to handle the review process of the Cairo Conference, for there was a high degree of overlap with various other processes dealing with social, environmental and human rights issues. A single coherent framework was needed for monitoring implementation of the goals set by major international conferences of the 1990s.
The debate on the concise report of the Secretary-General on world population monitoring, 2002, was launched by the special discussant for the current session, Amy Tsui, Professor from Johns Hopkins University, who stressed the importance of the macro-level development implications of improved reproductive health, and national responsibility for the right to health.
In the discussion that followed, several speakers supported the statement by the representative of Egypt who called into question the credibility and objectivity of the report. When referring to reproductive health, family planning and maternal mortality, the document failed to make reference to the ethical behaviour and the preventive aspects of HIV/AIDS, he said. Its authors should also have adhered to the language adopted at the special session on HIV/AIDS as far as vulnerable populations most at risk of sexually transmitted infections were concerned. Such a report should not be even referred to in the resolutions to be adopted by the Commission.
While supporting the report’s coverage of efforts to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the United States’ representative said that the lack of current, accurate and comprehensive data in its section on abortion raised questions regarding the validity, purpose and intent of the analysis. In fact, the ICPD Programme of Action had called upon governments to help women avoid abortions, but progress in that area was absent from the report. The United States also did not accept the use of the term “reproductive health services”, because it could be interpreted to include promoting the legalization or expansion of legal abortion services.
During the organizational part of today’s meeting, the Commission elected by acclamation Antonio Golini (Italy) as Chairman of its current session, and Makato Atoh (Japan) as one of its three Vice-Chairmen. It further adopted its provisional agenda for the session and took note of the report on the inter-sessional meeting of the Commission’s Bureau, held at Headquarters in New York on 7 and 8 November, which was introduced by Mr. Atoh (Japan), the Chairman of the Commission’s thirty-fourth session. The Commission also agreed on its organization of work for the session, which was introduced by Mr. Chamie.
Reports before the Commission were introduced by Birgitta Bucht, Assistant Director and Chief of the Demographic Analysis Branch of the Population Division; France Donay, Chief of the Reproductive Health Branch, Technical Support Divisions, UNFPA; and Mari Simonen, Director of the Technical Support Division, UNFPA.
Statements were also made by representatives of Spain (speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States), Iran, China, Yemen, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, Syria, Ghana, Algeria, Indonesia and Canada.
The President of the Economic and Social Council, Ivan Simonovic (Croatia), also addressed the Commission, as did Steven W. Sinding, Director-General Designate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
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