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On Wednesday, September 15 at 10:00 am, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, hosted a press conference in the First Amendment Lounge at the National Press Club (529 14th Street, NW, 13th floor, Washington, DC) to release the annual State of World Population, The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and the Global Effort to End Poverty.

PRESENTER: Stan Bernstein, Senior Researcher/Policy Adviser, UNFPA

RESPONDENTS: Representative Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Timothy E. Wirth, President, United Nations Foundation
Lois Abraham, 34 Million Friends Campaign
Kakenya Ntayia, member of Kenya's Masai community, who avoided pressure to marry early in order to earn a college degree

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS: Countries are making real progress in carrying out the global action plan that links poverty alleviation to women's rights and universal access to reproductive health. Ten years into the new era opened by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the quality and reach of family planning programmes have improved, safe motherhood and HIV prevention efforts are being scaled up, and governments embrace the ICPD Programme of Action as an essential blueprint for realizing development goals.

But much more must be done. Ten years after Cairo:

• More than 350 million couples still lack access to a full range of family planning services.
• Complications of pregnancy and childbirth remain a leading cause of death and illness among women; 529,000 die each year, mostly from preventable causes.
• Five million new HIV infections occurred during 2003; women are nearly half of all infected adults, and nearly three fifths of those in sub-Saharan Africa.

State of World Population 2004 is accessible on the UNFPA Web site, www.unfpa.org.