UN: billions more needed for women

LONDON – Wealthy countries are falling billions of dollars short of their promises to help fund reproductive health care and improvements in the status of women around the world, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The world body’s Population Fund said there has been significant but uneven progress in the past decade on those issues, which it sees as central to tackling poverty and keeping population growth in check. The gaps between rich and poor nations remain vast, the UN population agency said in halfway point report on the 20-year goals set at a landmark 1994 UN population and poverty conference in Cairo, Egypt.The meeting set the target of ensuring all people have access to reproductive health care by 2015, a goal only reachable with a huge new infusion of cash, the UNFPA said.Having children remains enormously risky for women in impoverished nations, it reported.Women in Africa are 175 times as likely to die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth as those in industrialised countries, the report said.One woman dies every minute from those causes – 529 000 deaths a year – and the vast majority are in poor countries, the report said.The number has not changed significantly since 1994, but most of those deaths could be prevented if all mothers-to-be had access to decent health care, the report said.The UNFPA said the idea that the intertwined problems of population growth and poverty are best dealt with by improving women’s rights, including their access to health care and education, had gained worldwide acceptance in the decade since it was put forth by the 1994 conference.”The dialogue about population has changed from population control – numbers of people – to the human rights of people, women in particular,” she said.”It’s focused on the well-being of people, rather than on the number of people.”Nearly all of the 151 poor countries surveyed by the agency now have laws or policies in place to protect the rights of women and girls, although laws on violence against women are often not enforced, the UNFPA said.The agency said 131 of the survey countries had changed national policies, laws or institutions to recognise reproductive rights.The agency said wealthy countries that in 1994 pledged an annual US$6,1 billion toward reaching the Cairo goals on women’s rights and health care are giving only half of that amount.US president George W Bush has blocked US$34 million in congressionally approved annual assistance to the agency, alleging that UNFPA helped China manage programmes that involved forced abortions, a charge it calls baseless.UNFPA director Thoraya Obaid said countries in Europe and elsewhere had more than made up that money, with the Netherlands, Japan, Norway and Denmark at the top of the donors’ list, but overall funding was still “woefully inadequate.”- Nampa-APThe gaps between rich and poor nations remain vast, the UN population agency said in halfway point report on the 20-year goals set at a landmark 1994 UN population and poverty conference in Cairo, Egypt.The meeting set the target of ensuring all people have access to reproductive health care by 2015, a goal only reachable with a huge new infusion of cash, the UNFPA said.Having children remains enormously risky for women in impoverished nations, it reported.Women in Africa are 175 times as likely to die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth as those in industrialised countries, the report said.One woman dies every minute from those causes – 529 000 deaths a year – and the vast majority are in poor countries, the report said.The number has not changed significantly since 1994, but most of those deaths could be prevented if all mothers-to-be had access to decent health care, the report said.The UNFPA said the idea that the intertwined problems of population growth and poverty are best dealt with by improving women’s rights, including their access to health care and education, had gained worldwide acceptance in the decade since it was put forth by the 1994 conference.”The dialogue about population has changed from population control – numbers of people – to the human rights of people, women in particular,” she said.”It’s focused on the well-being of people, rather than on the number of people.”Nearly all of the 151 poor countries surveyed by the agency now have laws or policies in place to protect the rights of women and girls, although laws on violence against women are often not enforced, the UNFPA said.The agency said 131 of the survey countries had changed national policies, laws or institutions to recognise reproductive rights.The agency said wealthy countries that in 1994 pledged an annual US$6,1 billion toward reaching the Cairo goals on women’s rights and health care are giving only half of that amount.US president George W Bush has blocked US$34 million in congressionally approved annual assistance to the agency, alleging that UNFPA helped China manage programmes that involved forced abortions, a charge it calls baseless.UNFPA director Thoraya Obaid said countries in Europe and elsewhere had more than made up that money, with the Netherlands, Japan, Norway and Denmark at the top of the donors’ list, but overall funding was still “woefully inadequate.”- Nampa-AP