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5-13 September 1994
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International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD) |
The International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo from 5 to 13 September 1994.
The Conference was convened under the auspices of the United Nations
and was organized by a secretariat composed of the Population Division
of the UN Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy
Analysis and UNFPA.
It was the largest intergovernmental conference
on population and development ever held, with 11,000 registered
participants, from governments, UN specialized agencies and organizations,
intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations
and the media. More than 180 states took part in negotiations to
finalize a Programme of Action in the area of population and development
for the next 20 years.
The Programme of Action, adopted by acclamation
on 13 September 1994, endorses a new strategy that emphasizes the
integral linkages between population and development and focuses
on meeting the needs of individual women and men, rather than on
achieving demographic targets.
The key to this new approach is empowering women
and providing them with more choices through expanded access to
education and health services, skill development and employment,
and through their full involvement in policy- and decision-making
processes at all levels. Indeed, one of the greatest achievements
of the Cairo Conference has been the recognition of the need to
empower women, both as a highly important end in itself and as a
key to improving the quality of life for everyone.
One of the primary goals of the Programme of Action
is to make family planning universally available by 2015 as part
of a broadened approach to reproductive health and rights. It also
includes goals in regard to education, especially for girls, as
well as goals to further reduce levels of infant, child and maternal
mortality. It addresses issues relating to population, the environment
and consumption patterns; the family; internal and international
migration; prevention and control of HIV/AIDS; technology, research
and development; and partnership with the non-governmental sector.
The Programme of Action provides estimates of the levels of national
resources and international assistance required and calls on governments
to make those resources available.
The Programme of Action builds upon the
World Population Plan of Action, adopted at the World Population
Conference held in Bucharest in 1974, and the recommendations adopted
at the International Conference on Population, held in Mexico City
in 1984. It also builds on the outcomes of the World Summit for
Children (1990), the UN Conference on Environment and Development
(1992), and the World Conference on Human Rights (1993). In turn,
the ICPD's major emphases were reaffirmed at the World Summit for
Social Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women, both
held in 1995.
Countries were urged to include population factors
in all development strategies, and to act to eliminate gender-based
violence and harmful traditional practices, including female genital
mutilation.
The Programme of Action set out the following
20-year goals in four related areas:
"Beyond the achievement of the goal of universal
primary education in all countries before the year 2015, all countries
are urged to ensure the widest and earliest possible access by girls
and women to secondary and higher levels of education, as well as
to vocational education and technical training, bearing in mind
the need to improve the quality and relevance of that education."
[para. 4.18]
"... Countries should strive to reduce their
infant and under-five mortality rates by one third, or to 50 and
70 per 1,000 live births, respectively, whichever is less, by the
year 2000, with appropriate adaptation to the particular situation
of each country. By 2005, countries with intermediate mortality
levels should aim to achieve an infant mortality rate below 50 deaths
per 1,000 live births and an under-five mortality rate below 60
deaths per 1,000 live births. By 2015, all countries should aim
to achieve an infant mortality rate below 35 per 1,000 live births
and an under-five mortality rate below 45 per 1,000. Countries that
achieve these levels earlier should strive to lower them further."
[para. 8.16]
"Countries should strive to effect significant
reductions in maternal mortality by the year 2015: a reduction in
maternal mortality by one half of the 1990 levels by the year 2000
and a further one half by 2015. The realization of these goals will
have different implications for countries with different 1990 levels
of maternal mortality. Countries with intermediate levels of mortality
should aim to achieve by the year 2005 a maternal mortality rate
below 100 per 100,000 live births and by the year 2015 a maternal
mortality rate below 60 per 100,000 live births. Countries with
the highest levels of maternal mortality should aim to achieve by
2005 a maternal mortality rate below 125 per 100,000 live births
and by 2015 a maternal mortality rate below 75 per 100,000 live
births. However, all countries should reduce maternal morbidity
and mortality to levels where they no longer constitute a public
health problem. Disparities in maternal mortality within countries
and between geographical regions, socio-economic and ethnic groups
should be narrowed." [para.
8.21]
"All countries should strive to make accessible
through the primary health-care system, reproductive health to all
individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible and no later
than the year 2015. Reproductive health care in the context of primary
health care should, inter alia, include: family-planning counselling,
information, education, communication and services; education and
services for pre-natal care, safe delivery and post-natal care;
prevention and appropriate treatment of infertility; abortion as
specified in paragraph 8.25, including prevention of abortion and
the management of the consequences of abortion; treatment of reproductive
tract infections; sexually transmitted diseases and other reproductive
health conditions; and information, education and counselling, as
appropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible
parenthood. Referral for family-planning services and further diagnosis
and treatment for complications of pregnancy, delivery and abortion,
infertility, reproductive tract infections, breast cancer and cancers
of the reproductive system, sexually transmitted diseases, including
HIV/AIDS should always be available, as required. Active discouragement
of harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, should
also be an integral component of primary health care, including
reproductive health-care programmes." [para.
7.6] 
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