Population Issues Are Critical to Meeting Development Goals, Asia and Pacific Experts Reaffirm

Reviewing plans adopted at the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference (APPC) in Bangkok in 2002, a three-day experts meeting concluded that the steps proposed in the Fifth APPC Plan of Action on Population and Poverty are needed more than ever in light of the global economic crisis and its likely impact on the poor.

 The 2002 recommendations were based on the Programme of Action adopted by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. The expert meeting proposed an Asia-Pacific conference be held later this year to assess regional progress in the 15 years since the ICPD, as part of a global review process.

“The strategies and actions planned to achieve the population goals are crucial for the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” Ms. Thelma Kay, Director of the Social Development Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), told the meeting.

“The goals are too important and their implications too far-reaching for the well-being of humanity to be disputed or neglected – especially now that the global economic crisis threatens to unravel much of the progress accomplished,” Ms. Kay added.

“It is the shared vision of ICPD, the MDGs and the Fifth APPC that has brought us together for a joint review, to identify gaps and suggest mid-course corrective actions,” said Mr. G. Giridhar, Special Adviser in the Asia-Pacific Regional Office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). “Evidence-based advocacy and partnerships are essential in this process.”

The percentage of Asians living in poverty has fallen significantly in the past two decades but uneven progress has left many behind, especially in South Asia. Each year in the region, a quarter of a million women, mostly poor, die as a result of persistent gaps in maternal health services.