NEW YORK (27 June 2005) — Five years ago the United Nations outlined eight Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty and improve the lives of the world's people by 2015. On the eve of the United Nation’s World Summit (taking place in September) to review the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the Population Council has published a group of original essays, each providing a unique assessment of the progress and significance of the declaration from a reproductive health and rights standpoint. These compositions, which appear in the June 2005 issue of the Council's peer-reviewed journal Studies in Family Planning, give a pointed, critical analysis of efforts in achieving the eight goals. Ultimately, however, the message is hopeful. The writers, high-level United Nations staff, scholars, and nongovernmental leaders from around the globe, challenge the UN leadership to amend the declaration's original vision. They suggest hearing, respecting, and incorporating the voices of those with the most to gain from expanding the paradigm: developing country peoples, especially women. Abstracts from the Studies in Family Planning MDG essays: - Stan Bernstein’s commentary traces the evolution of the discourse on population and development, demonstrating how changing political currents have led to the current struggle to define the agenda of population programs. Bernstein also notes some of the factors that contributed to the unfortunate exclusion of universal access to reproductive health from the declaration. He finds grounds for optimism by noting that the UN Millennium Project may make important contributions to the evolving political discourse on population, development, and sexual and reproductive health.
- Alaka Malwade Basu adopts something of an irreverent stance toward the UN Millennium Project. Observing that the various goals, whether or not they explicitly address reproductive health, are sure to benefit women in their struggle for health and empowerment, Basu encourages programs around the world not to resign themselves to the changing whims of the UN, but to press on with their agenda, seeking funding support from new sources if necessary, and to co-opt the language of the MDGs for their own ends.
- Mahmoud F. Fathalla notes that while the aching hardships that women in the developing world face leave them justifiably skeptical of UN declarations, there is cause for optimism. Fathalla reads the Millennium Project reports as making a strong case for the importance of investing in reproductive health. Despite his praise of the MDGs, he nonetheless sees room for improvement, through greater inclusion of the voices of women and the reproductive health community.
- Adrienne Germain and Ruth Dixon-Mueller would like to see the MDGs adopt additional indicators, aimed at meeting the demand for family planning, reducing the adolescent fertility rate, and increasing the availability of emergency contraceptive care. They also call for greater attention to such matters as reducing unplanned pregnancies, providing sexuality education programs for adolescents, and ensuring access to safe abortion and freedom from sexual coercion. Nonetheless, on the whole they see the reproductive health “glass” in the MDGs as half full.
- Steven W. Sinding argues that the UN’s global anti-poverty campaign can only be successful if the goal of universal access to reproductive health information and services is integrated into the MDGs. Omission of this goal also threatens to marginalize the reproductive health field, he warns. Sinding strongly recommends the adoption at the UN World Summit in September of additional targets and indicators recently proposed by UN task forces, including the adolescent fertility rate, the proportion of births attended by skilled birth attendants, and the proportion of demand for family planning satisfied.
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental research organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources. The Council conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research and helps build research capacities in developing countries. Established in 1952, the Council is governed by an international board of trustees. Its New York headquarters supports a global network of regional and country offices. ### Media contacts
Melissa May, APR: mmay@popcouncil.org +1 212 339 0525
Diane Rubino: drubino@popcouncil.org +1 212 339 0617 |
This page updated
19 October 2007 |
