Talent Alert: Sustainable Population Australia, Dr Jane O'Sullivan responds to 30th anniversary of UN ICPD
September 13 marks thirty years since the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo effectively denounced population stabilisation as a development goal.
Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) argues it is time for a reset. “World population is still growing by about 90 million a year,” notes SPA spokesperson Dr Jane O’Sullivan. “It is deepening poverty and food insecurity, and the natural environment can’t cope.
“At Cairo a new ideology falsely claimed all promotion of birth control led to human rights abuses."
Dr Jane O'Sullivan, SPA spokesperson
“Fortunately, the world’s governments did not agree to drop demographic goals entirely: the conference’s treaty document, the ICPD Programme of Action, acknowledged the importance of population stabilisation for development and environment.
“However, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), tasked with implementing it, became increasingly strident in condemning anyone voicing concerns about population growth as ‘alarmists’ and a threat to human rights.
“Henceforth, they insisted, family planning should be provided only for the sake of women’s reproductive health and rights,” says Dr O’Sullivan. “This demoted family planning programs from central pillars of national development agenda to minor activities of health departments.
“UN population conferences had been held each decade since 1954, but none have been held since 1994, allowing the new ideological agenda to continue unchallenged by the emerging evidence of its harm.”
Since 1994, funding for voluntary family planning programs dropped precipitately, both in international aid and domestic budgets. Fertility declines that were underway in several countries, such as Kenya, Egypt and Indonesia, stalled or even rebounded. In other countries, fertility has simply stayed high for much longer than anticipated.
World population growth has consistently exceeded UN’s projections, with each new revision elevating the estimate of current population above previous expectations. The UN’s new ideology kept fertility decline out of the Millennium Development Goals, but a UK parliamentary report documented how population growth undermined all the MDGs.
“Nor did the new agenda help women. Globally, the number of women with an unmet need for contraception is undiminished.
“Unless political will is refocused on ending world population growth, a new era of famines and violent conflicts seems inevitable.”
Key Facts:
* Population stabilisation was denounced as a development goal at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo 1994.
*A new ideology falsely claimed all promotion of birth control led to human rights abuses.
* Since then the United National Population Fund (UNFPA) has condemed anyone voicing concerns on population growth.
*Since the 1994 conference, funding for voluntary family planning programs dropped dramatically.
*World population growth has consistenctly exceeded UN projections.
*The UNFPA has failed to meet the unmet demand for contraception for women globally, with famine and violence inevitable if population growth is not addressed.
About us:
Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is an Australian, non-partisan, special advocacy group that seeks to establish an ecologically sustainable human population. It works on many fronts to encourage informed public debate about how Australia and the world can achieve an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable population.
Contact details:
Dr Jane O'Sullivan
0427420743
j.osullivan@uq.edu.au