Population conference ends with renewed commitment to ICPD
Population conference ends with renewed commitment to ICPD
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Bangkok, Thailand
The fifth Asia Pacific Population Conference (APPC) ended here on
Tuesday with the reaffirmation of all participating countries,
except the United States, to commitments made in the 1994
International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) in
Cairo, Egypt and its five-year review known as ICPD+5.
The U.S.'s general reservation will be noted in the APPC's
Plan of Action document and a statement of its interpretation
would be inserted in part two of the APPC report of proceedings,
part one of the proceedings being the Plan of Action document
itself.
"In no case should the footnote in the Plan of Action document
indicate a call for action," the rapporteur general of the
ministerial segment, Siswanto Agus Wilopo from Indonesia, said in
the assembly.
The Indian delegation also stressed that the reservations
should never be referred to as a Plan of Action.
Although the Plan of Action adopted at the Bangkok conference
will not be binding, it will be useful as a yardstick to assess
the ICPD implementation in the next population meeting in 2004.
Deliberations over the draft Plan of Action have been intense
during the seven-day conference due to the U.S.'s claim that the
text was endorsing abortion and under-aged sex despite
explanations from other delegations that the Cairo commitment was
clear that "in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of
family planning."
Many, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
expressed regret that the U.S.'s tough stance on the subjects had
taken away attention from other pressing issues on population and
poverty alleviation such as migration and migrant workers.
As a result, two chapters concerning reproductive rights and
reproductive health, and adolescent reproductive health went to a
recorded vote, in which only the U.S. voted "no".
"The United States has failed in its attempts to water down
the ICPD commitment, in this case it only succeeded in blocking
consensus," councillor at the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to
the United Nations in New York Salman Al-Farisi told The Jakarta
Post.
He said the U.S.'s "no" vote for the two chapters would
consequently mean that the country would have no moral obligation
to support programs on reproductive rights and health in terms of
financial or technical aid.
The U.S. general reservation stated, among other things, that
in regards to "reproductive rights, reproductive health,
reproductive health care and services, family planning services,
and sexual health should not be interpreted to constitute
support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion or abortion-
related services or the use of abortifacients."
Regardless of the U.S. reservations, the conference was deemed
successful by participating countries.
Among other things, the conference acknowledged that the ESCAP
region was still home to most of the world's poor, that
population and reproductive health issues were inextricably
linked to development and poverty, and that the twin challenges
of population concerns and poverty alleviation required a broad
approach, including the fostering of economic growth and social
development, and sustainability as well as the establishment of
safety-nets for the poor.
The conference also emphasized that people, including
adolescents, had the right to make their own choices and
decisions responsibly and on the basis of sound information. It
placed high priority on reproductive health services and rights,
noting that there was a clear link between these aspects and the
achievement of the millennium development goals.
The goals include halving the proportion of the world's
population whose income is less than US$1 a day by 2015, to
reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015 and under-five
child mortality by 66 percent of their current rates, and by 2015
have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, the
scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict
humanity.
Separately, the Indonesian delegation expressed regret that
the UN-ESCAP secretariat was not more prepared for the kind of
"sensitive" debate that the chapters on reproductive health had
ensued, and failed to employ a legal council to sit at
deliberations.
"The secretariat should have anticipated problems that could
arise from these sorts of deliberations. It should have learned
from the experience at Johannesburg where the chapter on
reproductive health was the last to be adopted and then only when
it was watered down," Salman said, referring to the World Summit
on Sustainable Development in the South African capital ending
Sept. 4.