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UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund,
is the world's largest international source of funding for
population and reproductive health programmes. Since we
began operations in 1969, the Fund has provided nearly $6
billion in assistance to developing countries.
UNFPA works with governments and non-governmental
organizations in over 140 countries, at their request, and
with the support of the international community. We support
programmes that help women, men and young people:
- plan their families and avoid unwanted pregnancies
- undergo pregnancy and childbirth safely
- avoid sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) - including
HIV/AIDS
- combat violence against women.
Together, these elements promote reproductive
health-a state of complete physical, mental and social well
being in all matters related to the reproductive system.
Reproductive health is recognized as a human right, part
of the right to health.
UNFPA also helps governments in the world's
poorest countries, and in other countries in need, to formulate
population policies and strategies in support of sustainable
development. All UNFPA-funded programmes promote women's
equality.
UNFPA works to raise awareness of these
needs among people everywhere. We advocate for close attention
to population problems and help to mobilize resources to
solve them.
UNFPA assistance works. Since 1969, access
to voluntary family planning programmes in developing countries
has increased and fertility has fallen by half, from six
children per woman to three. Nearly 60 per cent of married
women in developing countries have chosen to practise contraception,
compared with 10-15 per cent when we started our work.
UNFPA's work is guided by the Programme of Action adopted
by 179 governments at the International Conference on Population
and Development in 1994. The conference agreed that meeting
people's needs for education and health, including reproductive
health, is a prerequisite of sustainable development.
The main goals of the Programme of Action
are:
- Universal access to reproductive health
services by 2015
- Universal primary education and closing
the gender gap in education by 2015
- Reducing maternal mortality by 75 per
cent by 2015
- Reducing infant mortality
- Increasing life expectancy
These goals were refined and amplified
in 1999. One of the most important additions concerned HIV/AIDS:
- HIV infection rates in persons 15-24
years of age should be reduced by 25 per cent in the most-affected
countries by 2005 and by 25 per cent globally by 2010.
Reaching the goals of the Programme of
Action will be critical for reaching the Millennium Development
Goals-global targets set by world leaders in 2000 to halve
extreme poverty by 2015.
Reproductive health is a means to sustainable development
as well as a human right. Some 350 million couples lack
adequate means to plan their families or space their children.
Each year, half a million women in developing countries
die during pregnancy or in childbirth. Investments in reproductive
health save and improve lives, slow the spread of HIV/AIDS
and encourage gender equality. These in turn help to stabilize
population growth and reduce poverty. Investments in reproductive
health extend from the individual to the family, and from
the family to the world.
UNFPA promotes a holistic approach to
reproductive health care that includes: access to a range
of safe and affordable contraceptive methods and to sensitive
counselling; prenatal care, attended deliveries, emergency
obstetric care and post-natal care; and prevention of sexually
transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
Today the world has the largest youth generation ever -
the first generation of young people to grow up with HIV/AIDS.
There are more than a billion people between 15 and 24.
UNFPA works to ensure that adolescents
and young people have accurate information as well as non-judgmental
counselling, and comprehensive and affordable services to
prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections
including the HIV infection that leads to AIDS.
Each day 14,000 people-half of them aged 15 to 24-are newly
infected, and add to the epidemic's staggering impact on
health and on the social and economic stability of nations.
In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, young women are now
up to six times more likely than young men to be infected
with HIV.
Prevention, the centrepiece of UNFPA's
fight against the disease, is being integrated into reproductive
health programming around the world. Prevention includes
promoting safer sexual behaviour among young people, making
sure condoms are readily available and widely and correctly
used, empowering women to protect themselves and their children,
and encouraging men to make a difference.
Women can and must play a powerful role in sustainable development
and poverty eradication. When women are educated and healthy,
their families, communities and nations benefit. Yet gender-based
discrimination and violence pervade almost every aspect
of life, undermining women's opportunities and denying them
the ability to fully exercise their basic human rights.
For more than 30 years, UNFPA has been
in the forefront of bringing gender issues to wider attention,
promoting legal and policy reforms and gender-sensitive
data collection, and supporting projects that empower women
economically. The Fund aims to improve the status of women
at every stage of their lives.
Without the essential commodities-from contraceptives to
testing kits to equipment for emergency obstetric care-the
right to reproductive health cannot be fully exercised.
In many places, condoms are urgently needed to prevent the
further spread of the deadly HIV virus.
The mandate of UNFPA in this area is to
provide the right quantities of the right products in the
right condition in the right place at the right time for
the right price. This complex logistical process involves
many actors, including the public and private sectors. UNFPA
takes a lead role in reproductive health commodity security,
coordinating the process, forecasting needs, mobilizing
support and building logistical capacity at the country
level.
Humanitarian crises are reproductive health disasters. Complications
of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading causes of death
for displaced women of childbearing age. In conflicts, the
risk of sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections,
including HIV, increases dramatically.
Within the framework of coordinated, interagency
responses to disasters, UNFPA takes the lead in providing
supplies and services to protect reproductive health. Priority
areas for emergency response include safe motherhood, prevention
of sexually transmitted infections including HIV, adolescent
health, and sexual and gender-based violence.
Changes in the structure, distribution, and size of populations
are interlinked with all facets of sustainable development.
Tracking these changes and analysing population trends helps
governments and international agencies generate the political
will to appropriately address current and future needs.
UNFPA helps developing countries collect
and analyse population data and to integrate population
and development strategies into national, regional and global
planning.
UNFPA is the world's leading advocate for reproductive health
and rights, including the right to choose the number and
spacing of one's children. The Fund also promotes the inclusion
of population issues in national planning processes. Advocacy-at
the individual, community, national, regional and global
levels-is a powerful tool by which UNFPA is able to increase
its impact.
Alliances-with other United Nations agencies,
governments, NGOs, foundations and the private sector-enable
the Fund to raise awareness of and mobilize support for
the goals set forth in the International Conference on Population
and Development and the UN Millennium Summit.
UNFPA supports programmes in four developing regions: Arab
States and Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and
the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. We work in 142 countries,
areas and territories through nine Country Technical Services
Teams and 112 country offices.
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