|
The International Conference on Population and Development,
Having met in Cairo from 5 to 13 September 1994,
1.Adopts the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, which is annexed to the present resolution;
2.Recommends to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session that it endorse the Programme of Action as adopted by the Conference;
3.Also recommends that the General Assembly consider at its forty-ninth session the synthesis of national reports on population and development prepared by the secretariat of the Conference.
Contents
- National policies and plans of action
- Programme management and human resource development
- Resource mobilization and allocation
- Responsibilities of partners in development
- Towards a new commitment to funding population and development
- Local, national and international non-governmental organizations
- The private sector
- Activities at the national level
- Subregional and regional activities
- Activities at the international level
* The official language of the Programme of Action is English, with the exception of paragraph 8.25, which was negotiated in all six official languages of the United Nations.
1.1. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development occurs at a defining moment in the history of international cooperation. With the growing recognition of global population, development and environmental interdependence, the opportunity to adopt suitable macro- and socio-economic policies to promote sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development in all countries and to mobilize human and financial resources for global problem-solving has never been greater. Never before has the world community had so many resources, so much knowledge and such powerful technologies at its disposal which, if suitably redirected, could foster sustained economic growth and sustainable development. None the less, the effective use of resources, knowledge and technologies is conditioned by political and economic obstacles at the national and international levels. Therefore, although ample resources have been available for some time, their use for socially equitable and environmentally sound development has been seriously limited.
1.2. The world has undergone far-reaching changes in the past two decades. Significant progress in many fields important for human welfare has been made through national and international efforts. However, the developing countries are still facing serious economic difficulties and an unfavourable international economic environment, and the number of people living in absolute poverty has increased in many countries. Around the world many of the basic resources on which future generations will depend for their survival and well-being are being depleted and environmental degradation is intensifying, driven by unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, unprecedented growth in population, widespread and persistent poverty, and social and economic inequality. Ecological problems, such as global climate change, largely driven by unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, are adding to the threats to the well-being of future generations. There is an emerging global consensus on the need for increased international cooperation in regard to population in the context of sustainable development, for which Agenda 21 /1 provides a framework. Much has been achieved in this respect, but more needs to be done.
1.3. The world population is currently estimated at 5.6 billion. While the rate of growth is on the decline, absolute increments have been increasing, currently exceeding 86 million persons per annum. Annual population increments are likely to remain above 86 million until the year 2015./2
1.4. During the remaining six years of this critical decade, the world's nations by their actions or inactions will choose from among a range of alternative demographic futures. The low, medium and high variants of the United Nations population projections for the coming 20 years range from a low of 7.1 billion people to the medium variant of 7.5 billion and a high of 7.8 billion. The difference of 720 million people in the short span of 20 years exceeds the current population of the African continent. Further into the future, the projections diverge even more significantly. By the year 2050, the United Nations projections range from 7.9 billion to the medium variant of 9.8 billion and a high of 11.9 billion. Implementation of the goals and objectives contained in the present 20-year Programme of Action, which address many of the fundamental population, health, education and development challenges facing the entire human community, would result in world population growth during this period and beyond at levels below the United Nations medium projection.
1.5. The International Conference on Population and Development is not an isolated event. Its Programme of Action builds on the considerable international consensus that has developed since the World Population Conference at Bucharest in 1974 /3 and the International Conference on Population at Mexico City in 1984,/4 to consider the broad issues of and interrelationships between population, sustained economic growth and sustainable development, and advances in the education, economic status and empowerment of women. The 1994 Conference was explicitly given a broader mandate on development issues than previous population conferences, reflecting the growing awareness that population, poverty, patterns of production and consumption and the environment are so closely interconnected that none of them can be considered in isolation.
1.6. The International Conference on Population and Development follows and builds on other important recent international activities, and its recommendations should be supportive of, consistent with and based on the agreements reached at the following:
- The World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace, held in Nairobi in 1985;/5
- The World Summit for Children, held in New York in 1990;/6
- The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992;/7
- The International Conference on Nutrition, held in Rome in 1992;/8
- The World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993;/9
- The International Year of the World's Indigenous People, 1993,/10 which would lead to the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People;/11
- The Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, held in Barbados in 1994;/12
- The International Year of the Family, 1994./13
1.7. The Conference outcomes are closely related to and will make significant contributions to other major conferences in 1995 and 1996, such as the World Summit for Social Development,/14 the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace,/15 the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), the elaboration of the Agenda for Development, as well as the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. These events are expected to highlight further the call of the 1994 Conference for greater investment in people, and for a new action agenda for the empowerment of women to ensure their full participation at all levels in the social, economic and political lives of their communities.
1.8. Over the past 20 years, many parts of the world have undergone remarkable demographic, social, economic, environmental and political change. Many countries have made substantial progress in expanding access to reproductive health care and lowering birth rates, as well as in lowering death rates and raising education and income levels, including the educational and economic status of women. While the advances of the past two decades in areas such as increased use of contraception, decreased maternal mortality, implemented sustainable development plans and projects and enhanced educational programmes provide a basis for optimism about successful implementation of the present Programme of Action, much remains to be accomplished. The world as a whole has changed in ways that create important new opportunities for addressing population and development issues. Among the most significant are the major shifts in attitude among the world's people and their leaders in regard to reproductive health, family planning and population growth, resulting, inter alia, in the new comprehensive concept of reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, as defined in the present Programme of Action. A particularly encouraging trend has been the strengthening of political commitment to population-related policies and family-planning programmes by many Governments. In this regard, sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development will enhance the ability of countries to meet the pressures of expected population growth; will facilitate the demographic transition in countries where there is an imbalance between demographic rates and social, economic and environmental goals; and will permit the balance and integration of the population dimension into other development-related policies.
1.9. The population and development objectives and actions of the present Programme of Action will collectively address the critical challenges and interrelationships between population and sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development. In order to do so, adequate mobilization of resources at the national and international levels will be required as well as new and additional resources to the developing countries from all available funding mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and private sources. Financial resources are also required to strengthen the capacity of national, regional, subregional and international institutions to implement this Programme of Action.
1.10. The two decades ahead are likely to produce a further shift of rural populations to urban areas as well as continued high levels of migration between countries. These migrations are an important part of the economic transformations occurring around the world, and they present serious new challenges. Therefore, these issues must be addressed with more emphasis within population and development policies. By the year 2015, nearly 56 per cent of the global population is expected to live in urban areas, compared to under 45 per cent in 1994. The most rapid rates of urbanization will occur in the developing countries. The urban population of the developing regions was just 26 per cent in 1975, but is projected to rise to 50 per cent by 2015. This change will place enormous strain on existing social services and infrastructure, much of which will not be able to expand at the same rate as that of urbanization.
1.11. Intensified efforts are needed in the coming 5, 10 and 20 years, in a range of population and development activities, bearing in mind the crucial contribution that early stabilization of the world population would make towards the achievement of sustainable development. The present Programme of Action addresses all those issues, and more, in a comprehensive and integrated framework designed to improve the quality of life of the current world population and its future generations. The recommendations for action are made in a spirit of consensus and international cooperation, recognizing that the formulation and implementation of population-related policies is the responsibility of each country and should take into account the economic, social and environmental diversity of conditions in each country, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values, cultural backgrounds and philosophical convictions of its people, as well as the shared but differentiated responsibilities of all the world's people for a common future.
1.12. The present Programme of Action recommends to the international community a set of important population and development objectives, as well as qualitative and quantitative goals that are mutually supportive and of critical importance to these objectives. Among these objectives and goals are: sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development; education, especially for girls; gender equity and equality; infant, child and maternal mortality reduction; and the provision of universal access to reproductive health services, including family planning and sexual health.
1.13. Many of the quantitative and qualitative goals of the present Programme of Action clearly require additional resources, some of which could become available from a reordering of priorities at the individual, national and international levels. However, none of the actions required - nor all of them combined - is expensive in the context of either current global development or military expenditures. A few would require little or no additional financial resources, in that they involve changes in lifestyles, social norms or government policies that can be largely brought about and sustained through greater citizen action and political leadership. But to meet the resource needs of those actions that do require increased expenditures over the next two decades, additional commitments will be required on the part of both developing and developed countries. This will be particularly difficult in the case of some developing countries and some countries with economies in transition that are experiencing extreme resource constraints.
1.14. The present Programme of Action recognizes that over the next 20 years Governments are not expected to meet the goals and objectives of the International Conference on Population and Development single-handedly. All members of and groups in society have the right, and indeed the responsibility, to play an active part in efforts to reach those goals. The increased level of interest manifested by non-governmental organizations, first in the context of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the World Conference on Human Rights, and now in these deliberations, reflects an important and in many places rapid change in the relationship between Governments and a variety of non-governmental institutions. In nearly all countries new partnerships are emerging between government, business, non-governmental organizations and community groups, which will have a direct and positive bearing on the implementation of the present Programme of Action.
1.15. While the International Conference on Population and Development does not create any new international human rights, it affirms the application of universally recognized human rights standards to all aspects of population programmes. It also represents the last opportunity in the twentieth century for the international community to collectively address the critical challenges and interrelationships between population and development. The Programme of Action will require the establishment of common ground, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds. The impact of this Conference will be measured by the strength of the specific commitments made here and the consequent actions to fulfil them, as part of a new global partnership among all the world's countries and peoples, based on a sense of shared but differentiated responsibility for each other and for our planetary home.
The implementation of the recommendations contained in the Programme of Action is the sovereign right of each country, consistent with national laws and development priorities, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds of its people, and in conformity with universally recognized international human rights.
International cooperation and universal solidarity, guided by the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and in a spirit of partnership, are crucial in order to improve the quality of life of the peoples of the world.
In addressing the mandate of the International Conference on Population and Development and its overall theme, the interrelationships between population, sustained economic growth and sustainable development, and in their deliberations, the participants were and will continue to be guided by the following set of principles:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. People are the most important and valuable resource of any nation. Countries should ensure that all individuals are given the opportunity to make the most of their potential. They have the right to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing, housing, water and sanitation.
The right to development is a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights, and the human person is the central subject of development. While development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognized human rights. The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet the population, development and environment needs of present and future generations.
Advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women's ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population and development-related programmes. The human rights of women and the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women in civil, cultural, economic, political and social life, at the national, regional and international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex, are priority objectives of the international community.
Population-related goals and policies are integral parts of cultural, economic and social development, the principal aim of which is to improve the quality of life of all people.
Sustainable development as a means to ensure human well-being, equitably shared by all people today and in the future, requires that the interrelationships between population, resources, the environment and development should be fully recognized, properly managed and brought into harmonious, dynamic balance. To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, States should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote appropriate policies, including population-related policies, in order to meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
All States and all people shall cooperate in the essential task of eradicating poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease the disparities in standards of living and better meet the needs of the majority of the people of the world. The special situation and needs of developing countries, particularly the least developed, shall be given special priority. Countries with economies in transition, as well as all other countries, need to be fully integrated into the world economy.
Everyone has the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States should take all appropriate measures to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, universal access to health-care services, including those related to reproductive health care, which includes family planning and sexual health. Reproductive health-care programmes should provide the widest range of services without any form of coercion. All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so.
The family is the basic unit of society and as such should be strengthened. It is entitled to receive comprehensive protection and support. In different cultural, political and social systems, various forms of the family exist. Marriage must be entered into with the free consent of the intending spouses, and husband and wife should be equal partners.
Everyone has the right to education, which shall be directed to the full development of human resources, and human dignity and potential, with particular attention to women and the girl child. Education should be designed to strengthen respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including those relating to population and development. The best interests of the child shall be the guiding principle of those responsible for his or her education and guidance; that responsibility lies in the first place with the parents.
All States and families should give the highest possible priority to children. The child has the right to standards of living adequate for its well-being and the right to the highest attainable standards of health, and the right to education. The child has the right to be cared for, guided and supported by parents, families and society and to be protected by appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sale, trafficking, sexual abuse, and trafficking in its organs.
Countries receiving documented migrants should provide proper treatment and adequate social welfare services for them and their families, and should ensure their physical safety and security, bearing in mind the special circumstances and needs of countries, in particular developing countries, attempting to meet these objectives or requirements with regard to undocumented migrants, in conformity with the provisions of relevant conventions and international instruments and documents. Countries should guarantee to all migrants all basic human rights as included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. States have responsibilities with respect to refugees as set forth in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.
In considering the population and development needs of indigenous people, States should recognize and support their identity, culture and interests, and enable them to participate fully in the economic, political and social life of the country, particularly where their health, education and well-being are affected.
Sustained economic growth, in the context of sustainable development, and social progress require that growth be broadly based, offering equal opportunities to all people. All countries should recognize their common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development, and should continue to improve their efforts to promote sustained economic growth and to narrow imbalances in a manner that can benefit all countries, particularly the developing countries.
Basis for action
3.1. The everyday activities of all human beings, communities and countries are interrelated with population change, patterns and levels of use of natural resources, the state of the environment, and the pace and quality of economic and social development. There is general agreement that persistent widespread poverty as well as serious social and gender inequities have significant influences on, and are in turn influenced by, demographic parameters such as population growth, structure and distribution. There is also general agreement that unsustainable consumption and production patterns are contributing to the unsustainable use of natural resources and environmental degradation as well as to the reinforcement of social inequities and of poverty with the above-mentioned consequences for demographic parameters. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, adopted by the international community at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, call for patterns of development that reflect the new understanding of these and other intersectoral linkages. Recognizing the longer term realities and implications of current actions, the development challenge is to meet the needs of present generations and improve their quality of life without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
3.2. Despite recent declines in birth rates in many countries, further large increases in population size are inevitable. Owing to the youthful age structure, for numerous countries the coming decades will bring substantial population increases in absolute numbers. Population movements within and between countries, including the very rapid growth of cities and the unbalanced regional distribution of population, will continue and increase in the future.
3.3. Sustainable development implies, inter alia, long-term sustainability in production and consumption relating to all economic activities, including industry, energy, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, transport, tourism and infrastructure, in order to optimize ecologically sound resource use and minimize waste. Macroeconomic and sectoral policies have, however, rarely given due attention to population considerations. Explicitly integrating population into economic and development strategies will both speed up the pace of sustainable development and poverty alleviation and contribute to the achievement of population objectives and an improved quality of life of the population.
Objectives
3.4. The objectives are to fully integrate population concerns into:
- Development strategies, planning, decision-making and resource allocation at all levels and in all regions, with the goal of meeting the needs, and improving the quality of life, of present and future generations;
- All aspects of development planning in order to promote social justice and to eradicate poverty through sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development.
Actions
3.5. At the international, regional, national and local levels, population issues should be integrated into the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all policies and programmes relating to sustainable development. Development strategies must realistically reflect the short-, medium- and long-term implications of, and consequences for, population dynamics as well as patterns of production and consumption.
3.6. Governments, international agencies, non-governmental organizations and other concerned parties should undertake timely and periodic reviews of their development strategies, with the aim of assessing progress towards integrating population into development and environment programmes that take into account patterns of production and consumption and seek to bring about population trends consistent with the achievement of sustainable development and the improvement of the quality of life.
3.7. Governments should establish the requisite internal institutional mechanisms and enabling environment, at all levels of society, to ensure that population factors are appropriately addressed within the decision-making and administrative processes of all relevant government agencies responsible for economic, environmental and social policies and programmes.
3.8. Political commitment to integrated population and development strategies should be strengthened by public education and information programmes and by increased resource allocation through cooperation among Governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector, and by improvement of the knowledge base through research and national and local capacity-building.
3.9. To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, Governments should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote appropriate demographic policies. Developed countries should take the lead in achieving sustainable consumption patterns and effective waste management.
Basis for action
3.10. Population policies should take into account, as appropriate, development strategies agreed upon in multilateral forums, in particular the International Development Strategy for the Fourth United Nations Development Decade,/16 the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s,/17 the outcomes of the eighth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, Agenda 21 and the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s./18
3.11. Gains recorded in recent years in such indicators as life expectancy and national product, while significant and encouraging, do not, unfortunately, fully reflect the realities of life of hundreds of millions of men, women, adolescents and children. Despite decades of development efforts, both the gap between rich and poor nations and the inequalities within nations have widened. Serious economic, social, gender and other inequities persist and hamper efforts to improve the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people. The number of people living in poverty stands at approximately 1 billion and continues to mount.
3.12. All countries, more especially developing countries where almost all of the future growth of the world population will occur, and countries with economies in transition, face increasing difficulties in improving the quality of life of their people in a sustainable manner. Many developing countries and countries with economies in transition face major development obstacles, among which are those related to the persistence of trade imbalances, the slow-down in the world economy, the persistence of the debt-servicing problem, and the need for technologies and external assistance. The achievement of sustainable development and poverty eradication should be supported by macroeconomic policies designed to provide an appropriate international economic environment, as well as by good governance, effective national policies and efficient national institutions.
3.13. Widespread poverty remains the major challenge to development efforts. Poverty is often accompanied by unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy, low status of women, exposure to environmental risks and limited access to social and health services, including reproductive health services which, in turn, include family planning. All these factors contribute to high levels of fertility, morbidity and mortality, as well as to low economic productivity. Poverty is also closely related to inappropriate spatial distribution of population, to unsustainable use and inequitable distribution of such natural resources as land and water, and to serious environmental degradation.
3.14. Efforts to slow down population growth, to reduce poverty, to achieve economic progress, to improve environmental protection, and to reduce unsustainable consumption and production patterns are mutually reinforcing. Slower population growth has in many countries bought more time to adjust to future population increases. This has increased those countries' ability to attack poverty, protect and repair the environment, and build the base for future sustainable development. Even the difference of a single decade in the transition to stabilization levels of fertility can have a considerable positive impact on quality of life.
3.15. Sustained economic growth within the context of sustainable development is essential to eradicate poverty. Eradication of poverty will contribute to slowing population growth and to achieving early population stabilization. Investments in fields important to the eradication of poverty, such as basic education, sanitation, drinking water, housing, adequate food supply and infrastructure for rapidly growing populations, continue to strain already weak economies and limit development options. The unusually high number of young people, a consequence of high fertility rates, requires that productive jobs be created for a continually growing labour force under conditions of already widespread unemployment. The numbers of elderly requiring public support will also increase rapidly in the future. Sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development will be necessary to accommodate those pressures.
Objective
3.16. The objective is to raise the quality of life for all people through appropriate population and development policies and programmes aimed at achieving poverty eradication, sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development and sustainable patterns of consumption and production, human resource development and the guarantee of all human rights, including the right to development as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights. Particular attention is to be given to the socio-economic improvement of poor women in developed and developing countries. As women are generally the poorest of the poor and at the same time key actors in the development process, eliminating social, cultural, political and economic discrimination against women is a prerequisite of eradicating poverty, promoting sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development, ensuring quality family planning and reproductive health services, and achieving balance between population and available resources and sustainable patterns of consumption and production.
Actions
3.17. Investment in human resource development, in accordance with national policy, must be given priority in population and development strategies and budgets, at all levels, with programmes specifically directed at increased access to information, education, skill development, employment opportunities, both formal and informal, and high-quality general and reproductive health services, including family planning and sexual health care, through the promotion of sustained economic growth within the context of sustainable development in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
3.18. Existing inequities and barriers to women in the workforce should be eliminated and women's participation in all policy-making and implementation, as well as their access to productive resources, and ownership of land, and their right to inherit property should be promoted and strengthened. Governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector should invest in, promote, monitor and evaluate the education and skill development of women and girls and the legal and economic rights of women, and in all aspects of reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, in order to enable them to effectively contribute to and benefit from economic growth and sustainable development.
3.19. High priority should be given by Governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to meeting the needs, and increasing the opportunities for information, education, jobs, skill development and relevant reproductive health services, of all underserved members of society./19
3.20. Measures should be taken to strengthen food, nutrition and agricultural policies and programmes, and fair trade relations, with special attention to the creation and strengthening of food security at all levels.
3.21. Job creation in the industrial, agricultural and service sectors should be facilitated by Governments and the private sector through the establishment of more favourable climates for expanded trade and investment on an environmentally sound basis, greater investment in human resource development and the development of democratic institutions and good governance. Special efforts should be made to create productive jobs through policies promoting efficient and, where required, labour-intensive industries, and transfer of modern technologies.
3.22. The international community should continue to promote a supportive economic environment, particularly for developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their attempt to eradicate poverty and achieve sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development. In the context of the relevant international agreements and commitments, efforts should be made to support those countries, in particular the developing countries, by promoting an open, equitable, secure, non-discriminatory and predictable international trading system; by promoting foreign direct investment; by reducing the debt burden; by providing new and additional financial resources from all available funding sources and mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and private sources, including on concessional and grant terms according to sound and equitable criteria and indicators; by providing access to technologies; and by ensuring that structural adjustment programmes are so designed and implemented as to be responsive to social and environmental concerns.
Basis for action
3.23. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the international community agreed on objectives and actions aimed at integrating environment and development which were included in Agenda 21, other Conference outcomes and other international environmental agreements. Agenda 21 has been conceived as a response to the major environment and development challenges, including the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development, such as poverty, consumption, demographic dynamics, human health and human settlement, and to a broad range of environmental and natural resource concerns. Agenda 21 leaves to the International Conference on Population and Development further consideration of the interrelationships between population and the environment.
3.24. Meeting the basic human needs of growing populations is dependent on a healthy environment. These human dimensions need to be given attention in developing comprehensive policies for sustainable development in the context of population growth.
3.25. Demographic factors, combined with poverty and lack of access to resources in some areas, and excessive consumption and wasteful production patterns in others, cause or exacerbate problems of environmental degradation and resource depletion and thus inhibit sustainable development.
3.26. Pressure on the environment may result from rapid population growth, distribution and migration, especially in ecologically vulnerable ecosystems. Urbanization and policies that do not recognize the need for rural development also create environmental problems.
3.27. Implementation of effective population policies in the context of sustainable development, including reproductive health and family-planning programmes, require new forms of participation by various actors at all levels in the policy-making process.
Objectives
3.28. Consistent with Agenda 21, the objectives are:
- To ensure that population, environmental and poverty eradication factors are integrated in sustainable development policies, plans and programmes;
- To reduce both unsustainable consumption and production patterns as well as negative impacts of demographic factors on the environment in order to meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Actions
3.29. Governments at the appropriate level, with the support of the international community and regional and subregional organizations, should formulate and implement population policies and programmes to support the objectives and actions agreed upon in Agenda 21, other Conference outcomes and other international environmental agreements, taking into account the common but differentiated responsibilities reflected in those agreements. Consistent with the framework and priorities set forth in Agenda 21, the following actions, inter alia, are recommended to help achieve population and environment integration:
- Integrate demographic factors into environment impact assessments and other planning and decision-making processes aimed at achieving sustainable development;
- Take measures aimed at the eradication of poverty, with special attention to income-generation and employment strategies directed at the rural poor and those living within or on the edge of fragile ecosystems;
- Utilize demographic data to promote sustainable resource management, especially of ecologically fragile systems;
- Modify unsustainable consumption and production patterns through economic, legislative and administrative measures, as appropriate, aimed at fostering sustainable resource use and preventing environmental degradation;
- Implement policies to address the ecological implications of inevitable future increases in population numbers and changes in concentration and distribution, particularly in ecologically vulnerable areas and urban agglomerations.
3.30. Measures should be taken to enhance the full participation of all relevant groups, especially women, at all levels of population and environmental decision-making to achieve sustainable management of natural resources.
3.31. Research should be undertaken on the linkages among population, consumption and production, the environment and natural resources, and human health as a guide to effective sustainable development policies.
3.32. Governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector should promote public awareness and understanding for the implementation of the above-mentioned actions.
|
Basis for action
4.1. The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic and health status is a highly important end in itself. In addition, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. The full participation and partnership of both women and men is required in productive and reproductive life, including shared responsibilities for the care and nurturing of children and maintenance of the household. In all parts of the world, women are facing threats to their lives, health and well-being as a result of being overburdened with work and of their lack of power and influence. In most regions of the world, women receive less formal education than men, and at the same time, women's own knowledge, abilities and coping mechanisms often go unrecognized. The power relations that impede women's attainment of healthy and fulfilling lives operate at many levels of society, from the most personal to the highly public. Achieving change requires policy and programme actions that will improve women's access to secure livelihoods and economic resources, alleviate their extreme responsibilities with regard to housework, remove legal impediments to their participation in public life, and raise social awareness through effective programmes of education and mass communication. In addition, improving the status of women also enhances their decision-making capacity at all levels in all spheres of life, especially in the area of sexuality and reproduction. This, in turn, is essential for the long-term success of population programmes. Experience shows that population and development programmes are most effective when steps have simultaneously been taken to improve the status of women.
4.2. Education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. More than 40 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted that "everyone has the right to education". In 1990, Governments meeting at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, committed themselves to the goal of universal access to basic education. But despite notable efforts by countries around the globe that have appreciably expanded access to basic education, there are approximately 960 million illiterate adults in the world, of whom two thirds are women. More than one third of the world's adults, most of them women, have no access to printed knowledge, to new skills or to technologies that would improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt to social and economic change. There are 130 million children who are not enrolled in primary school and 70 per cent of them are girls.
Objectives
4.3. The objectives are:
- To achieve equality and equity based on harmonious partnership between men and women and enable women to realize their full potential;
- To ensure the enhancement of women's contributions to sustainable development through their full involvement in policy- and decision-making processes at all stages and participation in all aspects of production, employment, income-generating activities, education, health, science and technology, sports, culture and population-related activities and other areas, as active decision makers, participants and beneficiaries;
- To ensure that all women, as well as men, are provided with the education necessary for them to meet their basic human needs and to exercise their human rights.
Actions
4.4. Countries should act to empower women and should take steps to eliminate inequalities between men and women as soon as possible by:
- Establishing mechanisms for women's equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political process and public life in each community and society and enabling women to articulate their concerns and needs;
- Promoting the fulfilment of women's potential through education, skill development and employment, giving paramount importance to the elimination of poverty, illiteracy and ill health among women;
- Eliminating all practices that discriminate against women; assisting women to establish and realize their rights, including those that relate to reproductive and sexual health;
- Adopting appropriate measures to improve women's ability to earn income beyond traditional occupations, achieve economic self-reliance, and ensure women's equal access to the labour market and social security systems;
- Eliminating violence against women;
- Eliminating discriminatory practices by employers against women, such as those based on proof of contraceptive use or pregnancy status;
- Making it possible, through laws, regulations and other appropriate measures, for women to combine the roles of child-bearing, breast-feeding and child-rearing with participation in the workforce.
4.5. All countries should make greater efforts to promulgate, implement and enforce national laws and international conventions to which they are party, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, that protect women from all types of economic discrimination and from sexual harassment, and to implement fully the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. Countries are urged to sign, ratify and implement all existing agreements that promote women's rights.
4.6. Governments at all levels should ensure that women can buy, hold and sell property and land equally with men, obtain credit and negotiate contracts in their own name and on their own behalf and exercise their legal rights to inheritance.
4.7. Governments and employers are urged to eliminate gender discrimination in hiring, wages, benefits, training and job security with a view to eliminating gender-based disparities in income.
4.8. Governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations should ensure that their personnel policies and practices comply with the principle of equitable representation of both sexes, especially at the managerial and policy-making levels, in all programmes, including population and development programmes.
Specific procedures and indicators should be devised for gender-based analysis of development programmes and for assessing the impact of those programmes on women's social, economic and health status and access to resources.
4.9. Countries should take full measures to eliminate all forms of exploitation, abuse, harassment and violence against women, adolescents and children. This implies both preventive actions and rehabilitation of victims. Countries should prohibit degrading practices, such as trafficking in women, adolescents and children and exploitation through prostitution, and pay special attention to protecting the rights and safety of those who suffer from these crimes and those in potentially exploitable situations, such as migrant women, women in domestic service and schoolgirls. In this regard, international safeguards and mechanisms for cooperation should be put in place to ensure that these measures are implemented.
4.10. Countries are urged to identify and condemn the systematic practice of rape and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment of women as a deliberate instrument of war and ethnic cleansing and take steps to assure that full assistance is provided to the victims of such abuse for their physical and mental rehabilitation.
4.11. The design of family health and other development interventions should take better account of the demands on women's time from the responsibilities of child-rearing, household work and income-generating activities. Male responsibilities should be emphasized with respect to child-rearing and housework. Greater investments should be made in appropriate measures to lessen the daily burden of domestic responsibilities, the greatest share of which falls on women. Greater attention should be paid to the ways in which environmental degradation and changes in land use adversely affect the allocation of women's time. Women's domestic working environments should not adversely affect their health.
4.12. Every effort should be made to encourage the expansion and strengthening of grass-roots, community-based and activist groups for women. Such groups should be the focus of national campaigns to foster women's awareness of the full range of their legal rights, including their rights within the family, and to help women organize to achieve those rights.
4.13. Countries are strongly urged to enact laws and to implement programmes and policies which will enable employees of both sexes to organize their family and work responsibilities through flexible work-hours, parental leave, day-care facilities, maternity leave, policies that enable working mothers to breast-feed their children, health insurance and other such measures. Similar rights should be ensured to those working in the informal sector.
4.14. Programmes to meet the needs of growing numbers of elderly people should fully take into account that women represent the larger proportion of the elderly and that elderly women generally have a lower socio-economic status than elderly men.
Basis for action
4.15. Since in all societies discrimination on the basis of sex often starts at the earliest stages of life, greater equality for the girl child is a necessary first step in ensuring that women realize their full potential and become equal partners in development. In a number of countries, the practice of prenatal sex selection, higher rates of mortality among very young girls, and lower rates of school enrolment for girls as compared with boys, suggest that "son preference" is curtailing the access of girl children to food, education and health care. This is often compounded by the increasing use of technologies to determine foetal sex, resulting in abortion of female foetuses. Investments made in the girl child's health, nutrition and education, from infancy through adolescence, are critical.
Objectives
4.16. The objectives are:
- To eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl child and the root causes of son preference, which results in harmful and unethical practices regarding female infanticide and prenatal sex selection;
- To increase public awareness of the value of the girl child, and concurrently, to strengthen the girl child's self-image, self-esteem and status;
- To improve the welfare of the girl child, especially in regard to health, nutrition and education.
Actions
4.17. Overall, the value of girl children to both their family and society must be expanded beyond their definition as potential child-bearers and caretakers and reinforced through the adoption and implementation of educational and social policies that encourage their full participation in the development of the societies in which they live. Leaders at all levels of the society must speak out and act forcefully against patterns of gender discrimination within the family, based on preference for sons. One of the aims should be to eliminate excess mortality of girls, wherever such a pattern exists. Special education and public information efforts are needed to promote equal treatment of girls and boys with respect to nutrition, health care, education and social, economic and political activity, as well as equitable inheritance rights.
4.18. 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.
4.19. Schools, the media and other social institutions should seek to eliminate stereotypes in all types of communication and educational materials that reinforce existing inequities between males and females and undermine girls' self-esteem. Countries must recognize that, in addition to expanding education for girls, teachers' attitudes and practices, school curricula and facilities must also change to reflect a commitment to eliminate all gender bias, while recognizing the specific needs of the girl child.
4.20. Countries should develop an integrated approach to the special nutritional, general and reproductive health, education and social needs of girls and young women, as such additional investments in adolescent girls can often compensate for earlier inadequacies in their nutrition and health care.
4.21. Governments should strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. In addition, Governments should strictly enforce laws concerning the minimum legal age of consent and the minimum age at marriage and should raise the minimum age at marriage where necessary. Governments and non-governmental organizations should generate social support for the enforcement of laws on the minimum legal age at marriage, in particular by providing educational and employment opportunities.
4.22. Governments are urged to prohibit female genital mutilation wherever it exists and to give vigorous support to efforts among non-governmental and community organizations and religious institutions to eliminate such practices.
4.23. Governments are urged to take the necessary measures to prevent infanticide, prenatal sex selection, trafficking in girl children and use of girls in prostitution and pornography.
Basis for action
4.24. Changes in both men's and women's knowledge, attitudes and behaviour are necessary conditions for achieving the harmonious partnership of men and women. Men play a key role in bringing about gender equality since, in most societies, men exercise preponderant power in nearly every sphere of life, ranging from personal decisions regarding the size of families to the policy and programme decisions taken at all levels of Government. It is essential to improve communication between men and women on issues of sexuality and reproductive health, and the understanding of their joint responsibilities, so that men and women are equal partners in public and private life.
Objective
4.25. The objective is to promote gender equality in all spheres of life, including family and community life, and to encourage and enable men to take responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behaviour and their social and family roles.
Actions
4.26. The equal participation of women and men in all areas of family and household responsibilities, including family planning, child-rearing and housework, should be promoted and encouraged by Governments. This should be pursued by means of information, education, communication, employment legislation and by fostering an economically enabling environment, such as family leave for men and women so that they may have more choice regarding the balance of their domestic and public responsibilities.
4.27. Special efforts should be made to emphasize men's shared responsibility and promote their active involvement in responsible parenthood, sexual and reproductive behaviour, including family planning; prenatal, maternal and child health; prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV; prevention of unwanted and high-risk pregnancies; shared control and contribution to family income, children's education, health and nutrition; and recognition and promotion of the equal value of children of both sexes. Male responsibilities in family life must be included in the education of children from the earliest ages. Special emphasis should be placed on the prevention of violence against women and children.
4.28. Governments should take steps to ensure that children receive appropriate financial support from their parents by, among other measures, enforcing child-support laws. Governments should consider changes in law and policy to ensure men's responsibility to and financial support for their children and families. Such laws and policies should also encourage maintenance or reconstitution of the family unit. The safety of women in abusive relationships should be protected.
4.29. National and community leaders should promote the full involvement of men in family life and the full integration of women in community life. Parents and schools should ensure that attitudes that are respectful of women and girls as equals are instilled in boys from the earliest possible age, along with an understanding of their shared responsibilities in all aspects of a safe, secure and harmonious family life. Relevant programmes to reach boys before they become sexually active are urgently needed.
Basis for action
5.1. While various forms of the family exist in different social, cultural, legal and political systems, the family is the basic unit of society and as such is entitled to receive comprehensive protection and support. The process of rapid demographic and socio-economic change throughout the world has influenced patterns of family formation and family life, generating considerable change in family composition and structure. Traditional notions of gender-based division of parental and domestic functions and participation in the paid labour force do not reflect current realities and aspirations, as more and more women in all parts of the world take up paid employment outside the home. At the same time, widespread migration, forced shifts of population caused by violent conflicts and wars, urbanization, poverty, natural disasters and other causes of displacement have placed greater strains on the family, since assistance from extended family support networks is often no longer available. Parents are often more dependent on assistance from third parties than they used to be in order to reconcile work and family responsibilities. This is particularly the case when policies and programmes that affect the family ignore the existing diversity of family forms, or are insufficiently sensitive to the needs and rights of women and children.
Objectives
5.2. The objectives are:
- To develop policies and laws that better support the family, contribute to its stability and take into account its plurality of forms, particularly the growing number of single-parent households;
- To establish social security measures that address the social, cultural and economic factors behind the increasing costs of child-rearing;
- To promote equality of opportunity for family members, especially the rights of women and children in the family.
Actions
5.3. Governments, in cooperation with employers, should provide and promote means to facilitate compatibility between labour force participation and parental responsibilities, especially for single-parent households with young children. Such means could include health insurance and social security, day-care centres and facilities for breast-feeding mothers within the work premises, kindergartens, part-time jobs, paid parental leave, paid maternity leave, flexible work schedules, and reproductive and child health services.
5.4. When formulating socio-economic development policies, special consideration should be given to increasing the earning power of all adult members of economically deprived families, including the elderly and women who work in the home, and to enabling children to be educated rather than compelled to work. Particular attention should be paid to needy single parents, especially those who are responsible wholly or in part for the support of children and other dependants, through ensuring payment of at least minimum wages and allowances, credit, education, funding for women's self-help groups and stronger legal enforcement of male parental financial responsibilities.
5.5. Governments should take effective action to eliminate all forms of coercion and discrimination in policies and practices. Measures should be adopted and enforced to eliminate child marriages and female genital mutilation. Assistance should be provided to persons with disabilities in the exercise of their family and reproductive rights and responsibilities.
5.6. Governments should maintain and further develop mechanisms to document changes and undertake studies on family composition and structure, especially on the prevalence of one-person households, and single-parent and multigenerational families.
Basis for action
5.7. Families are sensitive to strains induced by social and economic changes. It is essential to grant particular assistance to families in difficult life situations. Conditions have worsened for many families in recent years, owing to lack of gainful employment and measures taken by Governments seeking to balance their budget by reducing social expenditures. There are increasing numbers of vulnerable families, including single-parent families headed by women, poor families with elderly members or those with disabilities, refugee and displaced families, and families with members affected by AIDS or other terminal diseases, substance dependence, child abuse and domestic violence. Increased labour migrations and refugee movements are an additional source of family tension and disintegration and are contributing to increased responsibilities for women. In many urban environments, millions of children and youths are left to their own devices as family ties break down, and hence are increasingly exposed to risks such as dropping out of school, labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
Objective
5.8. The objective is to ensure that all social and economic development policies are fully responsive to the diverse and changing needs and to the rights of families and their individual members, and provide necessary support and protection, particularly to the most vulnerable families and the most vulnerable family members.
Actions
5.9. Governments should formulate family-sensitive policies in the field of housing, work, health, social security and education in order to create an environment supportive of the family, taking into account its various forms and functions, and should support educational programmes concerning parental roles, parental skills and child development. Governments should, in conjunction with other relevant parties, develop the capacity to monitor the impact of social and economic decisions and actions on the well-being of families, on the status of women within families, and on the ability of families to meet the basic needs of their members.
5.10. All levels of Government, non-governmental organizations and concerned community organizations should develop innovative ways to provide more effective assistance to families and the individuals within them who may be affected by specific problems, such as extreme poverty, chronic unemployment, illness, domestic and sexual violence, dowry payments, drug or alcohol dependence, incest, and child abuse, neglect or abandonment.
5.11. Governments should support and develop the appropriate mechanisms to assist families caring for children, the dependent elderly and family members with disabilities, including those resulting from HIV/AIDS, encourage the sharing of those responsibilities by men and women, and support the viability of multigenerational families.
5.12. Governments and the international community should give greater attention to, and manifest greater solidarity with, poor families and families that have been victimized by war, drought, famine, natural disasters and racial and ethnic discrimination or violence. Every effort should be made to keep their members together, to reunite them in case of separation and to ensure access to government programmes designed to support and assist those vulnerable families.
5.13. Governments should assist single-parent families, and pay special attention to the needs of widows and orphans. All efforts should be made to assist the building of family-like ties in especially difficult circumstances, for example, those involving street children.
Basis for action
6.1. The growth of the world population is at an all-time high in absolute numbers, with current increments approaching 90 million persons annually. According to United Nations projections, annual population increments are likely to remain close to 90 million until the year 2015. While it had taken 123 years for world population to increase from 1 billion to 2 billion, succeeding increments of 1 billion took 33 years, 14 years and 13 years. The transition from the fifth to the sixth billion, currently under way, is expected to take only 11 years and to be completed by 1998.
World population grew at the rate of 1.7 per cent per annum during the period 1985-1990, but is expected to decrease during the following decades and reach 1.0 per cent per annum by the period 2020-2025. Nevertheless, the attainment of population stabilization during the twenty-first century will require the implementation of all the policies and recommendations in the present Programme of Action.
6.2. The majority of the world's countries are converging towards a pattern of low birth and death rates, but since those countries are proceeding at different speeds, the emerging picture is that of a world facing increasingly diverse demographic situations. In terms of national averages, during the period 1985-1990, fertility ranged from an estimated 8.5 children per woman in Rwanda to 1.3 children per woman in Italy, while expectation of life at birth, an indicator of mortality conditions, ranged from an estimated 41 years in Sierra Leone to 78.3 years in Japan. In many regions, including some countries with economies in transition, it is estimated that life expectancy at birth has decreased. During the period 1985-1990, 44 per cent of the world population were living in the 114 countries that had growth rates of more than 2 per cent per annum. These included nearly all the countries in Africa, whose population-doubling time averages about 24 years, two thirds of those in Asia and one third of those in Latin America. On the other hand, 66 countries (the majority of them in Europe), representing 23 per cent of the world population, had growth rates of less than 1 per cent per annum. Europe's population would take more than 380 years to double at current rates. These disparate levels and differentials have implications for the ultimate size and regional distribution of the world population and for the prospects for sustainable development. It is projected that between 1995 and 2015 the population of the more developed regions will increase by some 120 million, while the population of the less developed regions will increase by 1,727 million.
Objective
6.3. Recognizing that the ultimate goal is the improvement of the quality of life of present and future generations, the objective is to facilitate the demographic transition as soon as possible in countries where there is an imbalance between demographic rates and social, economic and environmental goals, while fully respecting human rights. This process will contribute to the stabilization of the world population, and, together with changes in unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, to sustainable development and economic growth.
Actions
6.4. Countries should give greater attention to the importance of population trends for development. Countries that have not completed their demographic transition should take effective steps in this regard within the context of their social and economic development and with full respect of human rights. Countries that have concluded the demographic transition should take necessary steps to optimize their demographic trends within the context of their social and economic development. These steps include economic development and poverty alleviation, especially in rural areas, improvement of women's status, ensuring of universal access to quality primary education and primary health care, including reproductive health and family-planning services, and educational strategies regarding responsible parenthood and sexual education. Countries should mobilize all sectors of society in these efforts, including non-governmental organizations, local community groups and the private sector.
6.5. In attempting to address population growth concerns, countries should recognize the interrelationships between fertility and mortality levels and aim to reduce high levels of infant, child and maternal mortality so as to lessen the need for high fertility and reduce the occurrence of high-risk births.
Basis for action
6.6. Owing to declining mortality levels and the persistence of high fertility levels, a large number of developing countries continue to have very large proportions of children and young people in their populations. For the less developed regions as a whole, 36 per cent of the population is under age 15, and even with projected fertility declines, that proportion will still be about 30 per cent by the year 2015. In Africa, the proportion of the population under age 15 is 45 per cent, a figure that is projected to decline only slightly, to 40 per cent, in the year 2015. Poverty has a devastating impact on children's health and welfare. Children in poverty are at high risk for malnutrition and disease and for falling prey to labour exploitation, trafficking, neglect, sexual abuse and drug addiction. The ongoing and future demands created by large young populations, particularly in terms of health, education and employment, represent major challenges and responsibilities for families, local communities, countries and the international community. First and foremost among these responsibilities is to ensure that every child is a wanted child. The second responsibility is to recognize that children are the most important resource for the future and that greater investments in them by parents and societies are essential to the achievement of sustained economic growth and development.
Objectives
6.7. The objectives are:
- To promote to the fullest extent the health, well-being and potential of all children, adolescents and youth as representing the world's future human resources, in line with the commitments made in this respect at the World Summit for Children and in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
- To meet the special needs of adolescents and youth, especially young women, with due regard for their own creative capabilities, for social, family and community support, employment opportunities, participation in the political process, and access to education, health, counselling and high-quality reproductive health services;
- To encourage children, adolescents and youth, particularly young women, to continue their education in order to equip them for a better life, to increase their human potential, to help prevent early marriages and high-risk child-bearing and to reduce associated mortality and morbidity.
Actions
6.8. Countries should give high priority and attention to all dimensions of the protection, survival and development of children and youth, particularly street children and youth, and should make every effort to eliminate the adverse effects of poverty on children and youth, including malnutrition and preventable diseases. Equal educational opportunities must be ensured for boys and girls at every level.
6.9. Countries should take effective steps to address the neglect, as well as all types of exploitation and abuse, of children, adolescents and youth, such as abduction, rape and incest, pornography, trafficking, abandonment and prostitution. In particular, countries should take appropriate action to eliminate sexual abuse of children both within and outside their borders.
6.10. All countries must enact and strictly enforce laws against economic exploitation, physical and mental abuse or neglect of children in keeping with commitments made under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other relevant United Nations instruments. Countries should provide support and rehabilitation services to those who fall victims to such abuses.
6.11. Countries should create a socio-economic environment conducive to the elimination of all child marriages and other unions as a matter of urgency, and should discourage early marriage. The social responsibilities that marriage entails should be reinforced in countries' educational programmes. Governments should take action to eliminate discrimination against young pregnant women.
6.12. All countries must adopt collective measures to alleviate the suffering of children in armed conflicts and other disasters, and provide assistance for the rehabilitation of children who become victims of those conflicts and disasters.
6.13. Countries should aim to meet the needs and aspirations of youth, particularly in the areas of formal and non-formal education, training, employment opportunities, housing and health, thereby ensuring their integration and participation in all spheres of society, including participation in the political process and preparation for leadership roles.
6.14. Governments should formulate, with the active support of non-governmental organizations and the private sector, training and employment programmes. Primary importance should be given to meeting the basic needs of young people, improving their quality of life, and increasing their contribution to sustainable development.
6.15. Youth should be actively involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of development activities that have a direct impact on their daily lives. This is especially important with respect to information, education and communication activities and services concerning reproductive and sexual health, including the prevention of early pregnancies, sex education and the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Access to, as well as confidentiality and privacy of, these services must be ensured with the support and guidance of their parents and in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In addition, there is a need for educational programmes in favour of life planning skills, healthy lifestyles and the active discouragement of substance abuse.
Basis for action
6.16. The decline in fertility levels, reinforced by continued declines in mortality levels, is producing fundamental changes in the age structure of the population of most societies, most notably record increases in the proportion and number of elderly persons, including a growing number of very elderly persons. In the more developed regions, approximately one person in every six is at least 60 years old, and this proportion will be close to one person in every four by the year 2025. The situation of developing countries that have experienced very rapid declines in their levels of fertility deserves particular attention. In most societies, women, because they live longer than men, constitute the majority of the elderly population and, in many countries, elderly poor women are especially vulnerable. The steady increase of older age groups in national populations, both in absolute numbers and in relation to the working-age population, has significant implications for a majority of countries, particularly with regard to the future viability of existing formal and informal modalities for assistance to elderly people. The economic and social impact of this "ageing of populations" is both an opportunity and a challenge to all societies. Many countries are currently re-examining their policies in the light of the principle that elderly people constitute a valuable and important component of a society's human resources. They are also seeking to identify how best to assist elderly people with long-term support needs.
Objectives
6.17. The objectives are:
- To enhance, through appropriate mechanisms, the self-reliance of elderly people, and to create conditions that promote quality of life and enable them to work and live independently in their own communities as long as possible or as desired;
- To develop systems of health care as well as systems of economic and social security in old age, where appropriate, paying special attention to the needs of women;
- To develop a social support system, both formal and informal, with a view to enhancing the ability of families to take care of elderly people within the family.
Actions
6.18. All levels of government in medium- and long-term socio-economic planning should take into account the increasing numbers and proportions of elderly people in the population. Governments should develop social security systems that ensure greater intergenerational and intragenerational equity and solidarity and that provide support to elderly people through the encouragement of multigenerational families, and the provision of long-term support and services for growing numbers of frail older people.
6.19. Governments should seek to enhance the self-reliance of elderly people to facilitate their continued participation in society. In consultation with elderly people, Governments should ensure that the necessary conditions are developed to enable elderly people to lead self-determined, healthy and productive lives and to make full use of the skills and abilities they have acquired in their lives for the benefit of society. The valuable contribution that elderly people make to families and society, especially as volunteers and caregivers, should be given due recognition and encouragement.
6.20. Governments, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations and the private sector, should strengthen formal and informal support systems and safety nets for elderly people and eliminate all forms of violence and discrimination against elderly people in all countries, paying special attention to the needs of elderly women.
Basis for action
6.21. Indigenous people have a distinct and important perspective on population and development relationships, frequently quite different from those of the populations with which they interrelate within national boundaries. In some regions of the world, indigenous people, after long periods of population loss, are experiencing steady and in some places rapid population growth resulting from declining mortality, although morbidity and mortality are generally still much higher than for other sections of the national population. In other regions, however, they are still experiencing a steady population decline as a result of contact with external diseases, loss of land and resources, ecological destruction, displacement, resettlement and disruption of their families, communities and social systems.
6.22. The situation of many indigenous groups is often characterized by discrimination and oppression, which are sometimes even institutionalized in national laws and structures of governance. In many cases, unsustainable patterns of production and consumption in the society at large are a key factor in the ongoing destruction of the ecological stability of their lands, as well as in an ongoing exertion of pressure to displace them from those lands. Indigenous people believe that recognition of their rights to their ancestral lands is inextricably linked to sustainable development. Indigenous people call for increased respect for indigenous culture, spirituality, lifestyles and sustainable development models, including traditional systems of land tenure, gender relations, use of resources and knowledge and practice of family planning. At national, regional and international levels, the perspectives of indigenous people have gained increasing recognition, as reflected, inter alia, in the presence of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and the proclamation by the General Assembly of the year 1993 as the International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
6.23. The decision of the international community to proclaim an International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, to commence on 10 December 1994, represents a further important step towards fulfilment of the aspirations of indigenous people. The goal of the Decade, which is the strengthening of international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education and health, is acknowledged as directly related to the purpose of the International Conference on Population and Development and the present Programme of Action. Accordingly, the distinct perspectives of indigenous people are incorporated throughout the present Programme of Action within the context of its specific chapters.
Objectives
6.24. The objectives are:
- To incorporate the perspectives and needs of indigenous communities into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the population, development and environment programmes that affect them;
- To ensure that indigenous people receive population-and development-related services that they deem socially, culturally and ecologically appropriate;
- To address social and economic factors that act to disadvantage indigenous people.
Actions
6.25. Governments and other important institutions in society should recognize the distinct perspective of indigenous people on aspects of population and development and, in consultation with indigenous people and in collaboration with concerned non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, should address their specific needs, including needs for primary health care and reproductive health services. All human rights violations and discrimination, especially all forms of coercion, must be eliminated.
6.26. Within the context of the activities of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, the United Nations should, in full cooperation and collaboration with indigenous people and their relevant organizations, develop an enhanced understanding of indigenous people and compile data on their demographic characteristics, both current and historical, as a means of improving the understanding of the population status of indigenous people. Special efforts are necessary to integrate statistics pertaining to indigenous populations into the national data-collection system.
6.27. Governments should respect the cultures of indigenous people and enable them to have tenure and manage their lands, protect and restore the natural resources and ecosystems on which indigenous communities depend for their survival and well-being and, in consultation with indigenous people, take this into account in the formulation of national population and development policies.
Basis for action
6.28. Persons with disabilities constitute a significant proportion of the population. The implementation of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (1983-1992) contributed towards increased awareness and expanded knowledge of disability issues, increased the role played by persons with disabilities and by concerned organizations, and contributed towards the improvement and expansion of disability legislation. However, there remains a pressing need for continued action to promote effective measures for the prevention of disability, for rehabilitation and for the realization of the goals of full participation and equality for persons with disabilities. In its resolution 47/88 of 16 December 1992, the General Assembly encouraged the consideration by, inter alia, the International Conference on Population and Development, of disability issues relevant to the subject-matter of the Conference.
Objectives
6.29. The objectives are:
- To ensure the realization of the rights of all persons with disabilities, and their participation in all aspects of social, economic and cultural life;
- To create, improve and develop necessary conditions that will ensure equal opportunities for persons with disabilities and the valuing of their capabilities in the process of economic and social development;
- To ensure the dignity and promote the self-reliance of persons with disabilities.
Actions
6.30. Governments at all levels should consider the needs of persons with disabilities in terms of ethical and human rights dimensions. Governments should recognize needs concerning, inter alia, reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, HIV/AIDS, information, education and communication. Governments should eliminate specific forms of discrimination that persons with disabilities may face with regard to reproductive rights, household and family formation, and international migration, while taking into account health and other considerations relevant under national immigration regulations.
6.31. Governments at all levels should develop the infrastructure to address the needs of persons with disabilities, in particular with regard to their education, training and rehabilitation.
6.32. Governments at all levels should promote mechanisms ensuring the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities and reinforce their capabilities of integration.
6.33. Governments at all levels should implement and promote a system of follow-up of social and economic integration of persons with disabilities.
|
7.1. This chapter is especially guided by the principles contained in chapter II and in particular the introductory paragraphs.
Basis for action
7.2. Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant. In line with the above definition of reproductive health, reproductive health care is defined as the constellation of methods, techniques and services that contribute to reproductive health and well-being by preventing and solving reproductive health problems. It also includes sexual health, the purpose of which is the enhancement of life and personal relations, and not merely counselling and care related to reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases.
7.3. Bearing in mind the above definition, reproductive rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents and other consensus documents. These rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. It also includes their right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents. In the exercise of this right, they should take into account the needs of their living and future children and their responsibilities towards the community. The promotion of the responsible exercise of these rights for all people should be the fundamental basis for government- and community-supported policies and programmes in the area of reproductive health, including family planning. As part of their commitment, full attention should be given to the promotion of mutually respectful and equitable gender relations and particularly to meeting the educational and service needs of adolescents to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality. Reproductive health eludes many of the world's people because of such factors as: inadequate levels of knowledge about human sexuality and inappropriate or poor-quality reproductive health information and services; the prevalence of high-risk sexual behaviour; discriminatory social practices; negative attitudes towards women and girls; and the limited power many women and girls have over their sexual and reproductive lives. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable because of their lack of information and access to relevant services in most countries. Older women and men have distinct reproductive and sexual health issues which are often inadequately addressed.
7.4. The implementation of the present Programme of Action is to be guided by the above comprehensive definition of reproductive health, which includes sexual health.
Objectives
7.5. The objectives are:
- To ensure that comprehensive and factual information and a full range of reproductive health-care services, including family planning, are accessible, affordable, acceptable and convenient to all users;
- To enable and support responsible voluntary decisions about child-bearing and methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the law and to have the information, education and means to do so;
- To meet changing reproductive health needs over the life cycle and to do so in ways sensitive to the diversity of circumstances of local communities.
Actions
7.6. 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 prenatal care, safe delivery and post-natal care, especially breast-feeding and infant and women's health 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.
7.7. Reproductive health-care programmes should be designed to serve the needs of women, including adolescents, and must involve women in the leadership, planning, decision-making, management, implementation, organization and evaluation of services. Governments and other organizations should take positive steps to include women at all levels of the health-care system.
7.8. Innovative programmes must be developed to make information, counselling and services for reproductive health accessible to adolescents and adult men. Such programmes must both educate and enable men to share more equally in family planning and in domestic and child-rearing responsibilities and to accept the major responsibility for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
Programmes must reach men in their workplaces, at home and where they gather for recreation. Boys and adolescents, with the support and guidance of their parents, and in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, should also be reached through schools, youth organizations and wherever they congregate. Voluntary and appropriate male methods for contraception, as well as for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, should be promoted and made accessible with adequate information and counselling.
7.9. Governments should promote much greater community participation in reproductive health-care services by decentralizing the management of public health programmes and by forming partnerships in cooperation with local non-governmental organizations and private health-care providers. All types of non-governmental organizations, including local women's groups, trade unions, cooperatives, youth programmes and religious groups, should be encouraged to become involved in the promotion of better reproductive health.
7.10. Without jeopardizing international support for programmes in developing countries, the international community should, upon request, give consideration to the training, technical assistance, short-term contraceptive supply needs and the needs of the countries in transition from centrally managed to market economies, where reproductive health is poor and in some cases deteriorating. Those countries, at the same time, must themselves give higher priority to reproductive health services, including a comprehensive range of contraceptive means, and must address their current reliance on abortion for fertility regulation by meeting the need of women in those countries for better information and more choices on an urgent basis.
7.11. Migrants and displaced persons in many parts of the world have limited access to reproductive health care and may face specific serious threats to their reproductive health and rights. Services must be particularly sensitive to the needs of individual women and adolescents and responsive to their often powerless situation, with particular attention to those who are victims of sexual violence.
Basis for action
7.12. The aim of family-planning programmes must be to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to do so and to ensure informed choices and make available a full range of safe and effective methods. The success of population education and family-planning programmes in a variety of settings demonstrates that informed individuals everywhere can and will act responsibly in the light of their own needs and those of their families and communities. The principle of informed free choice is essential to the long-term success of family-planning programmes. Any form of coercion has no part to play. In every society there are many social and economic incentives and disincentives that affect individual decisions about child-bearing and family size. Over the past century, many Governments have experimented with such schemes, including specific incentives and disincentives, in order to lower or raise fertility. Most such schemes have had only marginal impact on fertility and in some cases have been counterproductive. Governmental goals for family planning should be defined in terms of unmet needs for information and services. Demographic goals, while legitimately the subject of government development strategies, should not be imposed on family-planning providers in the form of targets or quotas for the recruitment of clients.
7.13. Over the past three decades, the increasing availability of safer methods of modern contraception, although still in some respects inadequate, has permitted greater opportunities for individual choice and responsible decision-making in matters of reproduction throughout much of the world. Currently, about 55 per cent of couples in developing regions use some method of family planning. This figure represents nearly a fivefold increase since the 1960s. Family-planning programmes have contributed considerably to the decline in average fertility rates for developing countries, from about six to seven children per woman in the 1960s to about three to four children at present. However, the full range of modern family-planning methods still remains unavailable to at least 350 million couples world wide, many of whom say they want to space or prevent another pregnancy. Survey data suggest that approximately 120 million additional women world wide would be currently using a modern family-planning method if more accurate information and affordable services were easily available, and if partners, extended families and the community were more supportive. These numbers do not include the substantial and growing numbers of sexually active unmarried individuals wanting and in need of information and services. During the decade of the 1990s, the number of couples of reproductive age will grow by about 18 million per annum. To meet their needs and close the existing large gaps in services, family planning and contraceptive supplies will need to expand very rapidly over the next several years. The quality of family-planning programmes is often directly related to the level and continuity of contraceptive use and to the growth in demand for services. Family-planning programmes work best when they are part of or linked to broader reproductive health programmes that address closely related health needs and when women are fully involved in the design, provision, management and evaluation of services.
Objectives
7.14. The objectives are:
- To help couples and individuals meet their reproductive goals in a framework that promotes optimum health, responsibility and family well-being, and respects the dignity of all persons and their right to choose the number, spacing and timing of the birth of their children;
- To prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the incidence of high-risk pregnancies and morbidity and mortality;
- To make quality family-planning services affordable, acceptable and accessible to all who need and want them, while maintaining confidentiality;
- To improve the quality of family-planning advice, information, education, communication, counselling and services;
- To increase the participation and sharing of responsibility of men in the actual practice of family planning;
- To promote breast-feeding to enhance birth spacing.
Actions
7.15. Governments and the international community should use the full means at their disposal to support the principle of voluntary choice in family planning.
7.16. All countries should, over the next several years, assess the extent of national unmet need for good-quality family-planning services and its integration in the reproductive health context, paying particular attention to the most vulnerable and underserved groups in the population. All countries should take steps to meet the family-planning needs of their populations as soon as possible and should, in all cases by the year 2015, seek to provide universal access to a full range of safe and reliable family-planning methods and to related reproductive health services which are not against the law. The aim should be to assist couples and individuals to achieve their reproductive goals and give them the full opportunity to exercise the right to have children by choice.
7.17. Governments at all levels are urged to institute systems of monitoring and evaluation of user-centred services with a view to detecting, preventing and controlling abuses by family-planning managers and providers and to ensure a continuing improvement in the quality of services. To this end, Governments should secure conformity to human rights and to ethical and professional standards in the delivery of family planning and related reproductive health services aimed at ensuring responsible, voluntary and informed consent and also regarding service provision. In-vitro fertilization techniques should be provided in accordance with appropriate ethical guidelines and medical standards.
7.18. Non-governmental organizations should play an active role in mobilizing community and family support, in increasing access and acceptability of reproductive health services including family planning, and cooperate with Governments in the process of preparation and provision of care, based on informed choice, and in helping to monitor public- and private-sector programmes, including their own.
7.19. As part of the effort to meet unmet needs, all countries should seek to identify and remove all the major remaining barriers to the utilization of family-planning services. Some of those barriers are related to the inadequacy, poor quality and cost of existing family-planning services. It should be the goal of public, private and non-governmental family-planning organizations to remove all programme-related barriers to family-planning use by the year 2005 through the redesign or expansion of information and services and other ways to increase the ability of couples and individuals to make free and informed decisions about the number, spacing and timing of births and protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases.
7.20. Specifically, Governments should make it easier for couples and individuals to take responsibility for their own reproductive health by removing unnecessary legal, medical, clinical and regulatory barriers to information and to access to family-planning services and methods.
7.21. All political and community leaders are urged to play a strong, sustained and highly visible role in promoting and legitimizing the provision and use of family-planning and reproductive health services. Governments at all levels are urged to provide a climate that is favourable to good-quality public and private family-planning and reproductive health information and services through all possible channels. Finally, leaders and legislators at all levels must translate their public support for reproductive health, including family planning, into adequate allocations of budgetary, human and administrative resources to help meet the needs of all those who cannot pay the full cost of services.
7.22. Governments are encouraged to focus most of their efforts towards meeting their population and development objectives through education and voluntary measures rather than schemes involving incentives and disincentives.
7.23. In the coming years, all family-planning programmes must make significant efforts to improve quality of care. Among other measures, programmes should:
- Recognize that appropriate methods for couples and individuals vary according to their age, parity, family-size preference and other factors, and ensure that women and men have information and access to the widest possible range of safe and effective family-planning methods in order to enable them to exercise free and informed choice;
- Provide accessible, complete and accurate information about various family-planning methods, including their health risks and benefits, possible side effects and their effectiveness in the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;
- Make services safer, affordable, more convenient and accessible for clients and ensure, through strengthened logistical systems, a sufficient and continuous supply of essential high-quality contraceptives. Privacy and confidentiality should be ensured;
- Expand and upgrade formal and informal training in sexual and reproductive health care and family planning for all health-care providers, health educators and managers, including training in interpersonal communications and counselling;
- Ensure appropriate follow-up care, including treatment for side effects of contraceptive use;
- Ensure availability of related reproductive health services on site or through a strong referral mechanism;
- In addition to quantitative measures of performance, give more emphasis to qualitative ones that take into account the perspectives of current and potential users of services through such means as effective management information systems and survey techniques for the timely evaluation of services;
- Family-planning and reproductive health programmes should emphasize breast-feeding education and support services, which can simultaneously contribute to birth spacing, better maternal and child health and higher child survival.
7.24. Governments should take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be promoted as a method of family planning, and in all cases provide for the humane treatment and counselling of women who have had recourse to abortion.
7.25. In order to meet the substantial increase in demand for contraceptives over the next decade and beyond, the international community should move, on an immediate basis, to establish an efficient coordination system and global, regional and subregional facilities for the procurement of contraceptives and other commodities essential to reproductive health programmes of developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The international community should also consider such measures as the transfer of technology to developing countries to enable them to produce and distribute high-quality contraceptives and other commodities essential to reproductive health services, in order to strengthen the self-reliance of those countries. At the request of the countries concerned, the World Health Organization should continue to provide advice on the quality, safety and efficacy of family-planning methods.
7.26. Provision of reproductive health-care services should not be confined to the public sector but should involve the private sector and non-governmental organizations, in accordance with the needs and resources of their communities, and include, where appropriate, effective strategies for cost recovery and service delivery, including social marketing and community-based services. Special efforts should be made to improve accessibility through outreach services.
Basis for action
7.27. The world-wide incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is high and increasing. The situation has worsened considerably with the emergence of the HIV epidemic. Although the incidence of some sexually transmitted diseases has stabilized in parts of the world, there have been increasing cases in many regions.
7.28. The social and economic disadvantages that women face make them especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, as illustrated, for example, by their exposure to the high-risk sexual behaviour of their partners. For women, the symptoms of infections from sexually transmitted diseases are often hidden, making them more difficult to diagnose than in men, and the health consequences are often greater, including increased risk of infertility and ectopic pregnancy. The risk of transmission from infected men to women is also greater than from infected women to men, and many women are powerless to take steps to protect themselves.
Objective
7.29. The objective is to prevent, reduce the incidence of, and provide treatment for, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and the complications of sexually transmitted diseases such as infertility, with special attention to girls and women.
Actions
7.30. Reproductive health programmes should increase their efforts to prevent, detect and treat sexually transmitted diseases and other reproductive tract infections, especially at the primary health-care level. Special outreach efforts should be made to those who do not have access to reproductive health-care programmes.
7.31. All health-care providers, including all family-planning providers, should be given specialized training in the prevention and detection of, and counselling on, sexually transmitted diseases, especially infections in women and youth, including HIV/AIDS.
7.32. Information, education and counselling for responsible sexual behaviour and effective prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, should become integral components of all reproductive and sexual health services.
7.33. Promotion and the reliable supply and distribution of high-quality condoms should become integral components of all reproductive health-care services. All relevant international organizations, especially the World Health Organization, should significantly increase their procurement. Governments and the international community should provide all means to reduce the spread and the rate of transmission of HIV/AIDS infection.
Basis for action
7.34. Human sexuality and gender relations are closely interrelated and together affect the ability of men and women to achieve and maintain sexual health and manage their reproductive lives. Equal relationships between men and women in matters of sexual relations and reproduction, including full respect for the physical integrity of the human body, require mutual respect and willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of sexual behaviour. Responsible sexual behaviour, sensitivity and equity in gender relations, particularly when instilled during the formative years, enhance and promote respectful and harmonious partnerships between men and women.
7.35. Violence against women, particularly domestic violence and rape, is widespread, and rising numbers of women are at risk from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases as a result of high-risk sexual behaviour on the part of their partners. In a number of countries, harmful practices meant to control women's sexuality have led to great suffering. Among them is the practice of female genital mutilation, which is a violation of basic rights and a major lifelong risk to women's health.
Objectives
7.36. The objectives are:
- To promote adequate development of responsible sexuality, permitting relations of equity and mutual respect between the genders and contributing to improving the quality of life of individuals;
- To ensure that women and men have access to the information, education and services needed to achieve good sexual health and exercise their reproductive rights and responsibilities.
Actions
7.37. Support should be given to integral sexual education and services for young people, with the support and guidance of their parents and in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that stress responsibility of males for their own sexual health and fertility and that help them exercise those responsibilities. Educational efforts should begin within the family unit, in the community and in the schools at an appropriate age, but must also reach adults, in particular men, through non-formal education and a variety of community-based efforts.
7.38. In the light of the urgent need to prevent unwanted pregnancies, the rapid spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence, Governments should base national policies on a better understanding of the need for responsible human sexuality and the realities of current sexual behaviour.
7.39. Active and open discussion of the need to protect women, youth and children from any abuse, including sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence, must be encouraged and supported by educational programmes at both national and community levels. Governments should set the necessary conditions and procedures to encourage victims to report violations of their rights. Laws addressing those concerns should be enacted where they do not exist, made explicit, strengthened and enforced, and appropriate rehabilitation services provided. Governments should also prohibit the production and the trade of child pornography.
7.40. Governments and communities should urgently take steps to stop the practice of female genital mutilation and protect women and girls from all such similar unnecessary and dangerous practices. Steps to eliminate the practice should include strong community outreach programmes involving village and religious leaders, education and counselling about its impact on girls' and women's health, and appropriate treatment and rehabilitation for girls and women who have suffered mutilation. Services should include counselling for women and men to discourage the practice.
Basis for action
7.41. The reproductive health needs of adolescents as a group have been largely ignored to date by existing reproductive health services. The response of societies to the reproductive health needs of adolescents should be based on information that helps them attain a level of maturity required to make responsible decisions. In particular, information and services should be made available to adolescents to help them understand their sexuality and protect them from unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and subsequent risk of infertility. This should be combined with the education of young men to respect women's self-determination and to share responsibility with women in matters of sexuality and reproduction. This effort is uniquely important for the health of young women and their children, for women's self-determination and, in many countries, for efforts to slow the momentum of population growth. Motherhood at a very young age entails a risk of maternal death that is much greater than average, and the children of young mothers have higher levels of morbidity and mortality. Early child-bearing continues to be an impediment to improvements in the educational, economic and social status of women in all parts of the world. Overall for young women, early marriage and early motherhood can severely curtail educational and employment opportunities and are likely to have a long-term, adverse impact on their and their children's quality of life.
7.42. Poor educational and economic opportunities and sexual exploitation are important factors in the high levels of adolescent child-bearing. In both developed and developing countries, adolescents faced with few apparent life choices have little incentive to avoid pregnancy and child-bearing.
7.43. In many societies, adolescents face pressures to engage in sexual activity. Young women, particularly low-income adolescents, are especially vulnerable. Sexually active adolescents of both sexes are increasingly at high risk of contracting and transmitting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and they are typically poorly informed about how to protect themselves. Programmes for adolescents have proven most effective when they secure the full involvement of adolescents in identifying their reproductive and sexual health needs and in designing programmes that respond to those needs.
Objectives
7.44. The objectives are:
- To address adolescent sexual and reproductive health issues, including unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion/20 and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, through the promotion of responsible and healthy reproductive and sexual behaviour, including voluntary abstinence, and the provision of appropriate services and counselling specifically suitable for that age group;
- To substantially reduce all adolescent pregnancies.
Actions
7.45. Recognizing the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent, appropriate direction and guidance in sexual and reproductive matters, countries must ensure that the programmes and attitudes of health-care providers do not restrict the access of adolescents to appropriate services and the information they need, including on sexually transmitted diseases and sexual abuse. In doing so, and in order to, inter alia, address sexual abuse, these services must safeguard the rights of adolescents to privacy, confidentiality, respect and informed consent, respecting cultural values and religious beliefs. In this context, countries should, where appropriate, remove legal, regulatory and social barriers to reproductive health information and care for adolescents.
7.46. Countries, with the support of the international community, should protect and promote the rights of adolescents to reproductive health education, information and care and greatly reduce the number of adolescent pregnancies.
7.47. Governments, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations, are urged to meet the special needs of adolescents and to establish appropriate programmes to respond to those needs. Such programmes should include support mechanisms for the education and counselling of adolescents in the areas of gender relations and equality, violence against adolescents, responsible sexual behaviour, responsible family-planning practice, family life, reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection and AIDS prevention. Programmes for the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse and incest and other reproductive health services should be provided. Such programmes should provide information to adolescents and make a conscious effort to strengthen positive social and cultural values. Sexually active adolescents will require special family-planning information, counselling and services, and those who become pregnant will require special support from their families and community during pregnancy and early child care. Adolescents must be fully involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of such information and services with proper regard for parental guidance and responsibilities.
7.48. Programmes should involve and train all who are in a position to provide guidance to adolescents concerning responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour, particularly parents and families, and also communities, religious institutions, schools, the mass media and peer groups. Governments and non-governmental organizations should promote programmes directed to the education of parents, with the objective of improving the interaction of parents and children to enable parents to comply better with their educational duties to support the process of maturation of their children, particularly in the areas of sexual behaviour and reproductive health.
Basis for action
8.1. One of the main achievements of the twentieth century has been the unprecedented increase in human longevity. In the past half century, expectation of life at birth in the world as a whole has increased by about 20 years, and the risk of dying in the first year of life has been reduced by nearly two thirds. Nevertheless, these achievements fall short of the much greater improvements that had been anticipated in the World Population Plan of Action and the Declaration of Alma Ata, adopted by the International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978. There remain entire national populations and sizeable population groups within many countries that are still subject to very high rates of morbidity and mortality. Differences linked to socio-economic status or ethnicity are often substantial. In many countries with economies in transition, the mortality rate has considerably increased as a result of deaths caused by accidents and violence.
8.2. The increases in life expectancy recorded in most regions of the world reflect significant gains in public health and in access to primary health-care services. Notable achievements include the vaccination of about 80 per cent of the children in the world and the widespread use of low-cost treatments, such as oral rehydration therapy, to ensure that more children survive. Yet these achievements have not been realized in all countries, and preventable or treatable illnesses are still the leading killers of young children. Moreover, large segments of many populations continue to lack access to clean water and sanitation facilities, are forced to live in congested conditions and lack adequate nutrition. Large numbers of people remain at continued risk of infectious, parasitic and water-borne diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria and schistosomiasis. In addition, the health effects of environmental degradation and exposure to hazardous substances in the workplace are increasingly a cause of concern in many countries. Similarly, the growing consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs will precipitate a marked increase in costly chronic diseases among working age and elderly people. The impact of reductions in expenditures for health and other social services which have taken place in many countries as a result of public-sector retrenchment, misallocation of available health resources, structural adjustment and the transition to market economies has pre-empted significant changes in lifestyles, livelihoods and consumption patterns and is also a factor in increasing morbidity and mortality. Although economic reforms are essential to sustained economic growth, it is equally essential that the design and implementation of structural adjustment programmes incorporate the social dimension.
Objectives
8.3. The objectives are:
- To increase the accessibility, availability, acceptability and affordability of health-care services and facilities to all people in accordance with national commitments to provide access to basic health care for all;
- To increase the healthy life-span and improve the quality of life of all people, and to reduce disparities in life expectancy between and within countries.
Actions
8.4. All countries should make access to basic health care and health promotion the central strategies for reducing mortality and morbidity. Sufficient resources should be assigned so that primary health services attain full coverage of the population. Governments should strengthen health and nutrition information, education and communication activities so as to enable people to increase their control over and improve their health. Governments should provide the necessary backup facilities to meet the demand created.
8.5. In keeping with the Declaration of Alma Ata, all countries should reduce mortality and morbidity and seek to make primary health care, including reproductive health care, available universally by the end of the current decade. Countries should aim to achieve by 2005 a life expectancy at birth greater than 70 years and by 2015 a life expectancy at birth greater than 75 years. Countries with the highest levels of mortality should aim to achieve by 2005 a life expectancy at birth greater than 65 years and by 2015 a life expectancy at birth greater than 70 years. Efforts to ensure a longer and healthier life for all should emphasize the reduction of morbidity and mortality differentials between males and females as well as among geographical regions, social classes and indigenous and ethnic groups.
8.6. The role of women as primary custodians of family health should be recognized and supported. Access to basic health care, expanded health education, the availability of simple cost-effective remedies, and the reappraisal of primary health-care services, including reproductive health-care services to facilitate the proper use of women's time, should be provided.
8.7. Governments should ensure community participation in health policy planning, especially with respect to the long-term care of the elderly, those with disabilities and those infected with HIV and other endemic diseases. Such participation should also be promoted in child-survival and maternal health programmes, breast-feeding support programmes, programmes for the early detection and treatment of cancer of the reproductive system, and programmes for the prevention of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.
8.8. All countries should re-examine training curricula and the delegation of responsibilities within the health-care delivery system in order to reduce frequent, unnecessary and costly reliance on physicians and on secondary- and tertiary-care facilities, while maintaining effective referral services. Access to health-care services for all people and especially for the most underserved and vulnerable groups must be ensured. Governments should seek to make basic health-care services more sustainable financially, while ensuring equitable access, by integrating reproductive health services, including maternal and child health and family-planning services, and by making appropriate use of community-based services, social marketing and cost-recovery schemes, with a view to increasing the range and quality of services available. The involvement of users and the community in the financial management of health-care services should be promoted.
8.9. Through technology transfer, developing countries should be assisted in building their capacity to produce generic drugs for the domestic market and to ensure the wide availability and accessibility of such drugs. To meet the substantial increase in demand for vaccines, antibiotics and other commodities over the next decade and beyond, the international community should strengthen global, regional and local mechanisms for the production, quality control and procurement of those items, where feasible, in developing countries. The international community should facilitate regional cooperation in the manufacture, quality control and distribution of vaccines.
8.10. All countries should give priority to measures that improve the quality of life and health by ensuring a safe and sanitary living environment for all population groups through measures aimed at avoiding crowded housing conditions, reducing air pollution, ensuring access to clean water and sanitation, improving waste management, and increasing the safety of the workplace. Special attention should be given to the living conditions of the poor and disadvantaged in urban and rural areas. The impact of environmental problems on health, particularly that of vulnerable groups, should be monitored by Governments on a regular basis.
8.11. Reform of the health sector and health policy, including the rational allocation of resources, should be promoted in order to achieve the stated objectives. All Governments should examine ways to maximize the cost-effectiveness of health programmes in order to achieve increased life expectancy, reduce morbidity and mortality and ensure access to basic health-care services for all people.
Basis for action
8.12. Important progress has been made in reducing infant and child mortality rates everywhere. Improvements in the survival of children have been the main component of the overall increase in average life expectancy in the world over the past century, first in the developed countries and over the past 50 years in the developing countries. The number of infant deaths (i.e., of children under age 1) per 1,000 live births at the world level declined from 92 in 1970-1975 to about 62 in 1990-1995. For developed regions, the decline was from 22 to 12 infant deaths per 1,000 births, and for developing countries from 105 to 69 infant deaths per 1,000 births. Improvements have been slower in sub-Saharan Africa and in some Asian countries where, during 1990-1995, more than one in every 10 children born alive will die before their first birthday. The mortality of children under age 5 exhibits significant variations between and within regions and countries. Indigenous people generally have higher infant and child mortality rates than the national norm. Poverty, malnutrition, a decline in breast-feeding, and inadequacy or lack of sanitation and of health facilities are all factors associated with high infant and child mortality. In some countries, civil unrest and wars have also had major negative impacts on child survival. Unwanted births, child neglect and abuse are also factors contributing to the rise in child mortality. In addition, HIV infection can be transmitted from mother to child before or during childbirth, and young children whose mothers die are at a very high risk of dying themselves at a young age.
8.13. The World Summit for Children, held in 1990, adopted a set of goals for children and development up to the year 2000, including a reduction in infant and under-5 child mortality rates by one third, or to 50 and 70 per 1,000 live births, respectively, whichever is less. These goals are based on the accomplishments of child-survival programmes during the 1980s, which demonstrate not only that effective low-cost technologies are available but also that they can be delivered efficiently to large populations. However, the morbidity and mortality reductions achieved through extraordinary measures in the 1980s are in danger of being eroded if the broad-based health-delivery systems established during the decade are not institutionalized and sustained.
8.14. Child survival is closely linked to the timing, spacing and number of births and to the reproductive health of mothers. Early, late, numerous and closely spaced pregnancies are major contributors to high infant and child mortality and morbidity rates, especially where health-care facilities are scarce. Where infant mortality remains high, couples often have more children than they otherwise would to ensure that a desired number survive.
Objectives
8.15. The objectives are:
- To promote child health and survival and to reduce disparities between and within developed and developing countries as quickly as possible, with particular attention to eliminating the pattern of excess and preventable mortality among girl infants and children;
- To improve the health and nutritional status of infants and children;
- To promote breast-feeding as a child-survival strategy.
Actions
8.16. Over the next 20 years, through international cooperation and national programmes, the gap between average infant and child mortality rates in the developed and the developing regions of the world should be substantially narrowed, and disparities within countries, those between geographical regions, ethnic or cultural groups, and socio-economic groups should be eliminated. Countries with indigenous people should achieve infant and under-5 mortality levels among their indigenous people that are the same as those of the general population. Countries should strive to reduce their infant and under-5 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 and an under-5 mortality rate below 60 deaths per 1,000 births. By 2015, all countries should aim to achieve an infant mortality rate below 35 per 1,000 live births and an under-5 mortality rate below 45 per 1,000. Countries that achieve these levels earlier should strive to lower them further.
8.17. All Governments should assess the underlying causes of high child mortality and should, within the framework of primary health care, extend integrated reproductive health-care and child-health services, [including safe motherhood,/21 child-survival programmes and family-planning services, to all the population and particularly to the most vulnerable and underserved groups. Such services should include prenatal care and counselling, with special emphasis on high-risk pregnancies and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection; adequate delivery assistance; and neonatal care, including exclusive breast-feeding, information on optimal breast-feeding and on proper weaning practices, and the provision of micronutrient supplementation and tetanus toxoid, where appropriate. Interventions to reduce the incidence of low birth weight and other nutritional deficiencies, such as anaemia, should include the promotion of maternal nutrition through information, education and counselling and the promotion of longer intervals between births. All countries should give priority to efforts to reduce the major childhood diseases, particularly infectious and parasitic diseases, and to prevent malnutrition among children, especially the girl child, through measures aimed at eradicating poverty and ensuring that all children live in a sanitary environment and by disseminating information on hygiene and nutrition. It is also important to provide parents with information and education about child care, including the use of mental and physical stimulation.
8.18. For infants and children to receive the best nutrition and for specific protection against a range of diseases, breast-feeding should be protected, promoted and supported. By means of legal, economic, practical and emotional support, mothers should be enabled to breast-feed their infants exclusively for four to six months without food or drink supplementation and to continue breast-feeding infants with appropriate and adequate complementary food up to the age of two years or beyond. To achieve these goals, Governments should promote public information on the benefits of breast-feeding; health personnel should receive training on the management of breast-feeding; and countries should examine ways and means to implement fully the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes.
Basis for action
8.19. Complications related to pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of mortality for women of reproductive age in many parts of the developing world. At the global level, it has been estimated that about half a million women die each year of pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries. The gap in maternal mortality between developed and developing regions is wide: in 1988, it ranged from more than 700 per 100,000 live births in the least developed countries to about 26 per 100,000 live births in the developed regions. Rates of 1,000 or more maternal deaths per 100,000 live births have been reported in several rural areas of Africa, giving women with many pregnancies a high lifetime risk of death during their reproductive years. According to the World Health Organization, the lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes is 1 in 20 in some developing countries, compared to 1 in 10,000 in some developed countries. The age at which women begin or stop child-bearing, the interval between each birth, the total number of lifetime pregnancies and the socio-cultural and economic circumstances in which women live all influence maternal morbidity and mortality. At present, approximately 90 per cent of the countries of the world, representing 96 per cent of the world population, have policies that permit abortion under varying legal conditions to save the life of a woman. However, a significant proportion of the abortions carried out are self-induced or otherwise unsafe, leading to a large fraction of maternal deaths or to permanent injury to the women involved. Maternal deaths have very serious consequences within the family, given the crucial role of the mother for her children's health and welfare. The death of the mother increases the risk to the survival of her young children, especially if the family is not able to provide a substitute for the maternal role. Greater attention to the reproductive health needs of female adolescents and young women could prevent the major share of maternal morbidity and mortality through prevention of unwanted pregnancies and any subsequent poorly managed abortion. Safe motherhood has been accepted in many countries as a strategy to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.
Objectives
8.20. The objectives are:
- To promote women's health and safe motherhood; to achieve a rapid and substantial reduction in maternal morbidity and mortality and reduce the differences observed between developing and developed countries and within countries. On the basis of a commitment to women's health and well-being, to reduce greatly the number of deaths and morbidity from unsafe abortion;/20
- To improve the health and nutritional status of women, especially of pregnant and nursing women.
Actions
8.21. 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 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.
8.22. All countries, with the support of all sections of the international community, must expand the provision of maternal health services in the context of primary health care. These services, based on the concept of informed choice, should include education on safe motherhood, prenatal care that is focused and effective, maternal nutrition programmes, adequate delivery assistance that avoids excessive recourse to caesarean sections and provides for obstetric emergencies; referral services for pregnancy, childbirth and abortion complications; post-natal care and family planning. All births should be assisted by trained persons, preferably nurses and midwives, but at least by trained birth attendants. The underlying causes of maternal morbidity and mortality should be identified, and attention should be given to the development of strategies to overcome them and for adequate evaluation and monitoring mechanisms to assess the progress being made in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity and to enhance the effectiveness of ongoing programmes. Programmes and education to engage men's support for maternal health and safe motherhood should be developed.
8.23. All countries, especially developing countries, with the support of the international community, should aim at further reductions in maternal mortality through measures to prevent, detect and manage high-risk pregnancies and births, particularly those to adolescents and late-parity women.
8.24. All countries should design and implement special programmes to address the nutritional needs of women of child-bearing age, especially those who are pregnant or breast-feeding, and should give particular attention to the prevention and management of nutritional anaemia and iodine-deficiency disorders. Priority should be accorded to improving the nutritional and health status of young women through education and training as part of maternal health and safe motherhood programmes. Adolescent females and males should be provided with information, education and counselling to help them delay early family formation, premature sexual activity and first pregnancy.
8.25. In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning. All Governments and relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are urged to strengthen their commitment to women's health, to deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion/20 as a major public health concern and to reduce the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family-planning services. Prevention of unwanted pregnancies must always be given the highest priority and every attempt should be made to eliminate the need for abortion. Women who have unwanted pregnancies should have ready access to reliable information and compassionate counselling. Any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process. In circumstances where abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe. In all cases, women should have access to quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion. Post-abortion counselling, education and family-planning services should be offered promptly, which will also help to avoid repeat abortions.
8.26. Programmes to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality should include information and reproductive health services, including family-planning services. In order to reduce high-risk pregnancies, maternal health and safe motherhood programmes should include counselling and family-planning information.
8.27. All countries, as a matter of some urgency, need to seek changes in high-risk sexual behaviour and devise strategies to ensure that men share responsibility for sexual and reproductive health, including family planning, and for preventing and controlling sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection and AIDS.
Basis for action
8.28. The AIDS pandemic is a major concern in both developed and developing countries. WHO estimates that the cumulative number of AIDS cases in the world amounted to 2.5 million persons by mid-1993 and that more than 14 million people had been infected with HIV since the pandemic began, a number that is projected to rise to between 30 million and 40 million by the end of the decade if effective prevention strategies are not pursued. As of mid-1993, about four fifths of all persons ever infected with HIV lived in developing countries where the infection was being transmitted mainly through heterosexual intercourse and the number of new cases was rising most rapidly among women. As a consequence, a growing number of children are becoming orphans, themselves at high risk of illness and death. In many countries, the pandemic is now spreading from urban to rural areas and between rural areas and is affecting economic and agricultural production.
Objectives
8.29. The objectives are:
- To prevent, reduce the spread of and minimize the impact of HIV infection; to increase awareness of the disastrous consequences of HIV infection and AIDS and associated fatal diseases, at the individual, community and national levels, and of the ways of preventing it; to address the social, economic, gender and racial inequities that increase vulnerability to the disease;
- To ensure that HIV-infected individuals have adequate medical care and are not discriminated against; to provide counselling and other support for people infected with HIV and to alleviate the suffering of people living with AIDS and that of their family members, especially orphans; to ensure that the individual rights and the confidentiality of persons infected with HIV are respected; to ensure that sexual and reproductive health programmes address HIV infection and AIDS;
- To intensify research on methods to control the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to find an effective treatment for the disease.
Actions
8.30. Governments should assess the demographic and development impact of HIV infection and AIDS. The AIDS pandemic should be controlled through a multisectoral approach that pays sufficient attention to its socio-economic ramifications, including the heavy burden on health infrastructure and household income, its negative impact on the labour force and productivity, and the increasing number of orphaned children. Multisectoral national plans and strategies to deal with AIDS should be integrated into population and development strategies. The socio-economic factors underlying the spread of HIV infection should be investigated, and programmes to address the problems faced by those left orphaned by the AIDS pandemic should be developed.
8.31. Programmes to reduce the spread of HIV infection should give high priority to information, education and communication campaigns to raise awareness and emphasize behavioural change. Sex education and information should be provided to both those infected and those not infected, and especially to adolescents. Health providers, including family-planning providers, need training in counselling on sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection, including the assessment and identification of high-risk behaviours needing special attention and services; training in the promotion of safe and responsible sexual behaviour, including voluntary abstinence, and condom use; training in the avoidance of contaminated equipment and blood products; and in the avoidance of sharing needles among injecting drug users. Governments should develop guidelines and counselling services on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases within the primary health-care services. Wherever possible, reproductive health programmes, including family-planning programmes, should include facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of common sexually transmitted diseases, including reproductive tract infection, recognizing that many sexually transmitted diseases increase the risk of HIV transmission. The links between the prevention of HIV infection and the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis should be assured.
8.32. Governments should mobilize all segments of society to control the AIDS pandemic, including non-governmental organizations, community organizations, religious leaders, the private sector, the media, schools and health facilities. Mobilization at the family and community levels should be given priority. Communities need to develop strategies that respond to local perceptions of the priority accorded to health issues associated with the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.
8.33. The international community should mobilize the human and financial resources required to reduce the rate of transmission of HIV infection. To that end, research on a broad range of approaches to prevent HIV transmission and to seek a cure for the disease should be promoted and supported by all countries. In particular, donor and research communities should support and strengthen current efforts to find a vaccine and to develop women-controlled methods, such as vaginal microbicides, to prevent HIV infection. Increased support is also needed for the treatment and care of HIV-infected persons and AIDS patients. The coordination of activities to combat the AIDS pandemic must be enhanced. Particular attention should be given to activities of the United Nations system at the national level, where measures such as joint programmes can improve coordination and ensure a more efficient use of scarce resources. The international community should also mobilize its efforts in monitoring and evaluating the results of various efforts to search for new strategies.
8.34. Governments should develop policies and guidelines to protect the individual rights of and eliminate discrimination against persons infected with HIV and their families. Services to detect HIV infection should be strengthened, making sure that they ensure confidentiality. Special programmes should be devised to provide care and the necessary emotional support to men and women affected by AIDS and to counsel their families and near relations˙
|
Basis for action
9.1. In the early 1990s, approximately half of the Governments in the world, mostly those of developing countries, considered the patterns of population distribution in their territories to be unsatisfactory and wished to modify them. A key issue was the rapid growth of urban areas, which are expected to house more than half of the world population by 2005. Consequently, attention has mostly been paid to rural-urban migration, although rural-rural and urban-urban migration are in fact the dominant forms of spatial mobility in many countries. The process of urbanization is an intrinsic dimension of economic and social development and, in consequence, both developed and developing countries are going through the process of shifting from predominantly rural to predominantly urban societies. For individuals, migration is often a rational and dynamic effort to seek new opportunities in life. Cities are centres of economic growth, providing the impetus for socio-economic innovation and change. However, migration is also prompted by push factors, such as inequitable allocation of development resources, adoption of inappropriate technologies and lack of access to available land. The alarming consequences of urbanization visible in many countries are related to its rapid pace, to which Governments have been unable to respond with their current management capacities and practices. Even in developing countries, however, there are already signs of a changing pattern of population distribution, in the sense that the trend towards concentration in a few large cities is giving way to a more widespread distribution in medium-sized urban centres. This movement is also found in some developed countries, with people indicating preference for living in smaller places. Effective population distribution policies are those that, while respecting the right of individuals to live and work in the community of their choice, take into account the effects of development strategies on population distribution. Urbanization has profound implications for the livelihood, way of life and values of individuals. At the same time, migration has economic, social and environmental implications - both positive and negative - for the places of origin and destination.
Objectives
9.2. The objectives are:
- To foster a more balanced spatial distribution of the population by promoting in an integrated manner the equitable and ecologically sustainable development of major sending and receiving areas, with particular emphasis on the promotion of economic, social and gender equity based on respect for human rights, especially the right to development;
- To reduce the role of the various push factors as they relate to migration flows.
Actions
9.3. Governments formulating population distribution policies should ensure that the objectives and goals of those policies are consistent with other development goals, policies and basic human rights. Governments, assisted by interested local, regional and intergovernmental agencies, should assess on a regular basis how the consequences of their economic and environmental policies, sectoral priorities, infrastructure investment and balance of resources among regional, central, provincial and local authorities influence population distribution and internal migration, both permanent and temporary.
9.4. In order to achieve a balanced spatial distribution of production employment and population, countries should adopt sustainable regional development strategies and strategies for the encouragement of urban consolidation, the growth of small or medium-sized urban centres and the sustainable development of rural areas, including the adoption of labour-intensive projects, training for non-farming jobs for youth and effective transport and communication systems. To create an enabling context for local development, including the provision of services, Governments should consider decentralizing their administrative systems. This also involves giving responsibility for expenditure and the right to raise revenue to regional, district and local authorities. While vast improvements to the urban infrastructure and environmental strategies are essential in many developing countries to provide a healthy environment for urban residents, similar activities should also be pursued in rural areas.
9.5. To reduce urban bias and isolated rural development, Governments should examine the feasibility of providing incentives to encourage the redistribution and relocation of industries and businesses from urban to rural areas and to encourage the establishment of new businesses, industrial units and income-generating projects in rural areas.
9.6. Governments wishing to create alternatives to out-migration from rural areas should establish the preconditions for development in rural areas, actively support access to ownership or use of land and access to water resources, especially for family units, make and encourage investments to enhance rural productivity, improve rural infrastructure and social services and facilitate the establishment of credit, production and marketing cooperatives and other grass-roots organizations that give people greater control over resources and improve their livelihoods. Particular attention is needed to ensure that these opportunities are also made available to migrants' families remaining in the areas of origin.
9.7. Governments should pursue development strategies offering tangible benefits to investors in rural areas and to rural producers. Governments should also seek to reduce restrictions on international trade in agricultural products.
9.8. Governments should strengthen their capacities to respond to the pressures caused by rapid urbanization by revising and reorienting the agencies and mechanisms for urban management as necessary and ensuring the wide participation of all population groups in planning and decision-making on local development. Particular attention should be paid to land management in order to ensure economical land use, protect fragile ecosystems and facilitate the access of the poor to land in both urban and rural areas.
9.9. Countries are urged to recognize that the lands of indigenous people and their communities should be protected from activities that are environmentally unsound or that the indigenous people concerned consider to be socially and culturally inappropriate. The term "lands" is understood to include the environment of the areas which the people concerned traditionally occupy.
9.10. Countries should increase information and training on conservation practices and foster the creation of sustainable off-farm rural employment opportunities in order to limit the further expansion of human settlements to areas with fragile ecosystems.
9.11. Population distribution policies should be consistent with such international instruments, when applicable, as the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949), including article 49.
Basis for action
9.12. In many countries, the urban system is characterized by the overwhelming preponderance of a single major city or agglomeration.
The tendency towards population concentration, fostered by the concentration of public and private resources in some cities, has also contributed to the rising number and size of mega-cities. In 1992, there were 13 cities with at least 10 million inhabitants and their number is expected to double by 2010, when most mega-cities will be located in the developing countries. The continued concentration of population in primate cities, and in mega-cities in particular, poses specific economic, social and environmental challenges for Governments. Yet large agglomerations also represent the most dynamic centres of economic and cultural activity in many countries. It is therefore essential that the specific problems of large cities be analysed and addressed, in full awareness of the positive contribution that large cities make to national economic and social development. The challenges faced by cities are often exacerbated by weak management capacities at the local level to address the consequences of population concentration, socio-economic development, environmental impacts and their interrelations.
Objective
9.13. The objective is to enhance the management of urban agglomerations through more participatory and resource-conscious planning and management, review and revise the policies and mechanisms that contribute to the excessive concentration of population in large cities, and improve the security and quality of life of both rural and urban low-income residents.
Actions
9.14. Governments should increase the capacity and competence of city and municipal authorities to manage urban development, to safeguard the environment, to respond to the need of all citizens, including urban squatters, for personal safety, basic infrastructure and services, to eliminate health and social problems, including problems of drugs and criminality, and problems resulting from overcrowding and disasters, and to provide people with alternatives to living in areas prone to natural and man-made disasters.
9.15. In order to improve the plight of the urban poor, many of whom work in the informal sector of the economy, Governments are urged to promote the integration of migrants from rural areas into urban areas and to develop and improve their income-earning capability by facilitating their access to employment, credit, production, marketing opportunities, basic education, health services, vocational training and transportation, with special attention to the situation of women workers and women heads of households. Child-care centres and special protection and rehabilitation programmes for street children should be established.
9.16. To finance the needed infrastructure and services in a balanced manner, taking into account the interests of the poor segments of society, local and national government agencies should consider introducing equitable cost-recovery schemes and increasing revenues by appropriate measures.
9.17. Governments should strengthen the capacity for land management, including urban planning, at all levels in order to take into account demographic trends and encourage the search for innovative approaches to address the challenges facing cities, with special attention to the pressures and needs resulting from the growth of their populations.
9.18. Governments should promote the development and implementation of effective environmental management strategies for urban agglomerations, giving special attention to water, waste and air management, as well as to environmentally sound energy and transport systems.
Basis for action
9.19. During the past decade, awareness of the situation of persons who are forced to leave their places of usual residence for a variety of reasons has been rising. Because there is no single definition of internally displaced persons, estimates of their number vary, as do the causes of their migration. However, it is generally accepted that these causes range from environmental degradation to natural disasters and internal conflicts that destroy human settlements and force people to flee from one area of the country to another. Indigenous people, in particular, are in many cases subject to displacement. Given the forced nature of their movement, internally displaced persons often find themselves in particularly vulnerable situations, especially women, who may be subjected to rape and sexual assault in situations of armed conflict. Internal displacement is often a precursor of outflows of refugees and externally displaced persons. Returning refugees may also be internally displaced.
Objectives
9.20. The objectives are:
- To offer adequate protection and assistance to persons displaced within their country, particularly women, children and the elderly, who are the most vulnerable, and to find solutions to the root causes of their displacement in view of preventing it and, when appropriate, to facilitate return or resettlement;
- To put an end to all forms of forced migration, including "ethnic cleansing".
Actions
9.21. Countries should address the causes of internal displacement, including environmental degradation, natural disasters, armed conflict and forced resettlement, and establish the necessary mechanisms to protect and assist displaced persons, including, where possible, compensation for damages, especially those who are not able to return to their normal place of residence in the short term. Adequate capacities for disaster preparedness should be developed. The United Nations, through dialogue with Governments and all intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, is encouraged to continue to review the need for protection and assistance to internally displaced persons, the root causes of internal displacement, prevention and long-term solutions, taking into account specific situations.
9.22. Measures should be taken to ensure that internally displaced persons receive basic education, employment opportunities, vocational training and basic health-care services, including reproductive health services and family planning.
9.23. In order to reverse declining environmental quality and minimize conflict over access to grazing land, the modernization of the pastoralist economic system should be pursued, with assistance provided as necessary through bilateral and multilateral arrangements.
9.24. Governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations are encouraged to strengthen development assistance for internally displaced persons so that they can return to their places of origin.
9.25. Measures should be taken, at the national level with international cooperation, as appropriate, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, to find lasting solutions to questions related to internally displaced persons, including their right to voluntary and safe return to their home of origin. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Basis for action
10.1. International economic, political and cultural interrelations play an important role in the flow of people between countries, whether they are developing, developed or with economies in transition. In its diverse types, international migration is linked to such interrelations and both affects and is affected by the development process. International economic imbalances, poverty and environmental degradation, combined with the absence of peace and security, human rights violations and the varying degrees of development of judicial and democratic institutions are all factors affecting international migration. Although most international migration flows occur between neighbouring countries, interregional migration, particularly that directed to developed countries, has been growing. It is estimated that the number of international migrants in the world, including refugees, is in excess of 125 million, about half of them in the developing countries. In recent years, the main receiving countries in the developed world registered a net migration intake of approximately 1.4 million persons annually, about two thirds of whom originated in developing countries. Orderly international migration can have positive impacts on both the communities of origin and the communities of destination, providing the former with remittances and the latter with needed human resources. International migration also has the potential of facilitating the transfer of skills and contributing to cultural enrichment. However, international migration entails the loss of human resources for many countries of origin and may give rise to political, economic or social tensions in countries of destination. To be effective, international migration policies need to take into account the economic constraints of the receiving country, the impact of migration on the host society and its effects on countries of origin. The long-term manageability of international migration hinges on making the option to remain in one's country a viable one for all people. Sustainable economic growth with equity and development strategies consistent with this aim are a necessary means to that end. In addition, more effective use can be made of the potential contribution that expatriate nationals can make to the economic development of their countries of origin.
Objectives
10.2. The objectives are:
- To address the root causes of migration, especially those related to poverty;
- To encourage more cooperation and dialogue between countries of origin and countries of destination in order to maximize the benefits of migration to those concerned and increase the likelihood that migration has positive consequences for the development of both sending and receiving countries;
- To facilitate the reintegration process of returning migrants.
Actions
10.3. Governments of countries of origin and of countries of destination should seek to make the option of remaining in one's country viable for all people. To that end, efforts to achieve sustainable economic and social development, ensuring a better economic balance between developed and developing countries and countries with economies in transition, should be strengthened. It is also necessary to increase efforts to defuse international and internal conflicts before they escalate; to ensure that the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, and indigenous people are respected; and to respect the rule of law, promote good governance, strengthen democracy and promote human rights. Furthermore, greater support should be provided for the attainment of national and household food security, for education, nutrition, health and population-related programmes and to ensure effective environmental protection. Such efforts may require national and international financial assistance, reassessment of commercial and tariff relations, increased access to world markets and stepped-up efforts on the part of developing countries and countries with economies in transition to create a domestic framework for sustainable economic growth with an emphasis on job creation. The economic situation in those countries is likely to improve only gradually and, therefore, migration flows from those countries are likely to decline only in the long term; in the interim, the acute problems currently observed will cause migration flows to continue for the short-to-medium term, and Governments are accordingly urged to adopt transparent international migration policies and programmes to manage those flows.
10.4. Governments of countries of origin wishing to foster the inflow of remittances and their productive use for development should adopt sound exchange rate, monetary and economic policies, facilitate the provision of banking facilities that enable the safe and timely transfer of migrants' funds, and promote the conditions necessary to increase domestic savings and channel them into productive investment.
10.5. Governments of countries of destination are invited to consider the use of certain forms of temporary migration, such as short-term and project-related migration, as a means of improving the skills of nationals of countries of origin, especially developing countries and countries with economies in transition. To that end, they should consider, as appropriate, entering into bilateral or multilateral agreements. Appropriate steps should be taken to safeguard the wages and working conditions of both migrant and native workers in the affected sectors. Governments of countries of origin are urged to facilitate the return of migrants and their reintegration into their home communities, and to devise ways of using their skills. Governments of countries of origin should consider collaborating with countries of destination and engaging the support of appropriate international organizations in promoting the return on a voluntary basis of qualified migrants who can play a crucial role in the transfer of knowledge, skills and technology. Countries of destination are encouraged to facilitate return migration by adopting flexible policies, such as the transferability of pensions and other work benefits.
10.6. Governments of countries affected by international migration are invited to cooperate, with a view to integrating the issue into their political and economic agendas and engaging in technical cooperation to aid developing countries and countries with economies in transition in addressing the impact of international migration. Governments are urged to exchange information regarding their international migration policies and the regulations governing the admission and stay of migrants in their territories. States that have not already done so are invited to consider ratifying the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
10.7. Governments are encouraged to consider requests for migration from countries whose existence, according to available scientific evidence, is imminently threatened by global warming and climate change.
10.8. In cooperation with international and non-governmental organizations and research institutions, Governments should support the gathering of data on flows and stocks of international migrants and on factors causing migration, as well as the monitoring of international migration. The identification of strategies to ensure that migration contributes to development and international relations should also be supported. The role of international organizations with mandates in the area of migration should be strengthened so that they can deliver adequate technical support to developing countries, advise in the management of international migration flows and promote intergovernmental cooperation through, inter alia, bilateral and multilateral negotiations, as appropriate.
Basis for action
10.9. Documented migrants are those who satisfy all the legal requirements to enter, stay and, if applicable, hold employment in the country of destination. In some countries, many documented migrants have, over time, acquired the right to long-term residence. In such cases, the integration of documented migrants into the host society is generally desirable, and for that purpose it is important to extend to them the same social, economic and legal rights as those enjoyed by citizens, in accordance with national legislation. The family reunification of documented migrants is an important factor in international migration. It is also important to protect documented migrants and their families from racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and to respect their physical integrity, dignity, religious beliefs and cultural values.
Documented migration is generally beneficial to the host country, since migrants are in general concentrated in the most productive ages and have skills needed by the receiving country, and their admission is congruent with the policies of the Government. The remittances of documented migrants to their countries of origin often constitute a very important source of foreign exchange and are instrumental in improving the well-being of relatives left behind.
Objectives
10.10. The objectives are:
- To ensure the social and economic integration of documented migrants, especially of those who have acquired the right to long-term residence in the country of destination, and their equal treatment before the law;
- To eliminate discriminatory practices against documented migrants, especially women, children and the elderly;
- To ensure protection against racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia;
- To promote the welfare of documented migrants and members of their families;
- To ensure the respect of the cultural and religious values, beliefs and practices of documented migrants, in so far as they accord with national legislation and universally recognized human rights;
- To take into account the special needs and circumstances of temporary migrants.
Actions
10.11. Governments of receiving countries are urged to consider extending to documented migrants who meet appropriate length-of-stay requirements, and to members of their families whose stay in the receiving country is regular, treatment equal to that accorded their own nationals with regard to the enjoyment of basic human rights, including equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of religious practices, working conditions, social security, participation in trade unions, access to health, education, cultural and other social services, as well as equal access to the judicial system and equal treatment before the law. Governments of receiving countries are further urged to take appropriate steps to avoid all forms of discrimination against migrants, including eliminating discriminatory practices concerning their nationality and the nationality of their children, and to protect their rights and safety. Women and children who migrate as family members should be protected from abuse or denial of their human rights by their sponsors, and Governments are asked to consider extending their stay should the family relationship dissolve, within the limits of national legislation.
10.12. In order to promote the integration of documented migrants having the right to long-term residence, Governments of receiving countries are urged to consider giving them civil and political rights and responsibilities, as appropriate, and facilitating their naturalization. Special efforts should be made to enhance the integration of the children of long-term migrants by providing them with educational and training opportunities equal to those of nationals, allowing them to exercise an economic activity, and facilitating the naturalization of those who have been raised in the receiving country. Consistent with article 10 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and all other relevant universally recognized human rights instruments, all Governments, particularly those of receiving countries, must recognize the vital importance of family reunification and promote its integration into their national legislation in order to ensure the protection of the unity of the families of documented migrants. Governments of receiving countries must ensure the protection of migrants and their families, giving priority to programmes and strategies that combat religious intolerance, racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia and gender discrimination and that generate the necessary public sensitivity in that regard.
10.13. Governments of countries of destination should respect the basic human rights of documented migrants as those Governments assert their right to regulate access to their territory and adopt policies that respond to and shape immigration flows. With regard to the admission of migrants, Governments should avoid discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sex and disability, while taking into account health and other considerations relevant under national immigration regulations, particularly considering the special needs of the elderly and children. Governments are urged to promote, through family reunion, the normalization of the family life of legal migrants who have the right to long-term residence.
10.14. Governments should consider providing assistance and cooperation for programmes that would address the adverse social and economic consequences of forced migration.
Basis for action
10.15. It is the right of every nation State to decide who can enter and stay in its territory and under what conditions. Such right, however, should be exercised taking care to avoid racist or xenophobic actions and policies. Undocumented or irregular migrants are persons who do not fulfil the requirements established by the country of destination to enter, stay or exercise an economic activity. Given that the pressures for migration are growing in a number of developing countries, especially since their labour force continues to increase, undocumented or irregular migration is expected to rise.
Objectives
10.16. The objectives are:
- To address the root causes of undocumented migration;
- To reduce substantially the number of undocumented migrants, while ensuring that those in need of international protection receive it; to prevent the exploitation of undocumented migrants and to ensure that their basic human rights are protected;
- To prevent all international trafficking in migrants, especially for the purposes of prostitution;
- To ensure protection against racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia.
Actions
10.17. Governments of countries of origin and countries of destination are urged to cooperate in reducing the causes of undocumented migration, safeguarding the basic human rights of undocumented migrants including the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution, and preventing their exploitation. Governments should identify the causes of undocumented migration and its economic, social and demographic impact as well as its implications for the formulation of social, economic and international migration policies.
10.18. Governments of both receiving countries and countries of origin should adopt effective sanctions against those who organize undocumented migration, exploit undocumented migrants or engage in trafficking in undocumented migrants, especially those who engage in any form of international traffic in women, youth and children. Governments of countries of origin, where the activities of agents or other intermediaries in the migration process are legal, should regulate such activities in order to prevent abuses, especially exploitation, prostitution and coercive adoption.
10.19. Governments, with the assistance of appropriate international organizations, should deter undocumented migration by making potential migrants aware of the legal conditions for entry, stay and employment in host countries through information activities in the countries of origin.
10.20. Governments of countries of origin of undocumented migrants and persons whose asylum claims have been rejected have the responsibility to accept the return and reintegration of those persons, and should not penalize such persons on their return. In addition, Governments of countries of origin and countries of destination should try to find satisfactory solutions to the problems caused by undocumented migration through bilateral or multilateral negotiations on, inter alia, readmission agreements that protect the basic human rights of the persons involved in accordance with relevant international instruments.
Basis for action
10.21. In less than 10 years, from 1985 to 1993, the number of refugees has more than doubled, from 8.5 million to 19 million. This has been caused by multiple and complex factors, including massive violations of human rights. Most of those refugees find asylum in developing countries, often imposing great burdens on those States. The institution of asylum is under severe strain in industrialized countries for a variety of reasons, including the growing numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers and the misuse of asylum procedures by migrants attempting to circumvent immigration restrictions. While two thirds of all countries in the world have ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or the 1967 Protocol, which establish standards for the protection of refugees, there is a need to strengthen the support for international protection of and assistance to refugees, especially refugee women and refugee children, who are particularly vulnerable. Displaced persons, who do not qualify for refugee status and are in some cases outside their country, are also vulnerable and need international assistance. Regional agreements to provide protection to persons fleeing war should be considered.
Objectives
10.22. The objectives are:
- To reduce pressures leading to refugee movements and displacement by combating their root causes at all levels and undertaking related preventive action;
- To find and implement durable solutions to the plight of refugees and displaced persons;
- To ensure effective protection of and assistance to refugee populations, with particular attention to the needs and physical security of refugee women and refugee children;
- To prevent the erosion of the institution of asylum;
- To provide adequate health, education and social services for refugees and displaced persons;
- To integrate refugee and returnee assistance and rehabilitation programmes into development planning, with due attention to gender equity.
Actions
10.23. Governments are urged to address the root causes of movements of refugees and displaced persons by taking appropriate measures, particularly with respect to conflict resolution; the promotion of peace and reconciliation; respect for human rights, including those of persons belonging to minorities; respect for independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of States. Moreover, factors that contribute to forced displacements need to be addressed through initiatives related to the alleviation of poverty, democratization, good governance and the prevention of environmental degradation. Governments and all other entities should respect and safeguard the right of people to remain in safety in their homes and should refrain from policies or practices that force people to flee.
10.24. Governments are urged to strengthen their support for international protection and assistance activities on behalf of refugees and, as appropriate, displaced persons and to promote the search for durable solutions to their plight. In doing so, Governments are encouraged to enhance regional and international mechanisms that promote appropriate shared responsibility for the protection and assistance needs of refugees. All necessary measures should be taken to ensure the physical protection of refugees - in particular, that of refugee women and refugee children - especially against exploitation, abuse and all forms of violence.
10.25. Adequate international support should be extended to countries of asylum to meet the basic needs of refugees and to assist in the search for durable solutions. Refugee populations should be assisted in achieving self-sufficiency. Refugees, particularly refugee women, should be involved in the planning of refugee assistance activities and in their implementation. In planning and implementing refugee assistance activities, special attention should be given to the specific needs of refugee women and refugee children. Refugees should be provided with access to adequate accommodation, education, health services, including family planning, and other necessary social services. Refugees are invited to respect the laws and regulations of their countries of asylum.
10.26. Governments should create conditions that would allow for the voluntary repatriation of refugees in safety and dignity. Rehabilitation assistance to repatriating refugees should, where possible, be linked to long-term reconstruction and development plans. The international community should provide assistance for refugee repatriation and rehabilitation programmes and for the removal of land mines and other unexploded devices that constitute a serious threat to the safety of returnees and the local population.
10.27. Governments are urged to abide by international law concerning refugees. States that have not already done so are invited to consider acceding to the international instruments concerning refugees - in particular, the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. Governments are furthermore urged to respect the principle of non-refoulement (i.e., the principle of no forcible return of persons to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion). Governments should ensure that asylum-seekers in the Government's territory have access to a fair hearing and should facilitate the expeditious processing of asylum requests, ensuring that guidelines and procedures for the determination of refugee status are sensitive to the particular situation of women.
10.28. In cases of sudden and massive arrivals of refugees and displaced persons in need of international protection, Governments of receiving countries should consider according to them at least temporary protection and treatment in accordance with internationally recognized standards and with national law, practices and regulations, until a solution to their plight can be found. Persons in need of protection should be encouraged to stay in safe areas and, to the extent possible and as appropriate, near their countries of origin. Governments should strengthen protection mechanisms and provide aid to assist the population in such areas. The principles of collective cooperation and international solidarity should be followed in assisting host countries, upon their request.
10.29. The problems of refugees and displaced persons arising from forced migration, including their right to repatriation, should be settled in accordance with the relevant principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, other international instruments and relevant United Nations resolutions.
|
