Global Policy Forum

By Anjira Assavanonda

Governments of about 30 Asia-Pacific countries were told yesterday to pay serious attention to the issues of population and reproductive health, considered a key to poverty reduction. Their representatives met in Bangkok yesterday at the UN-sponsored Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference focusing on links between poverty and population.

The conference also incorporated one of the goals agreed by 147 nations at the Millennium Summit in New York in 2000, which is to halve by 2015 the proportion of people earning less than US$1 a day, of which two-thirds are in Asia.

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, pointed out that in order to eliminate poverty, it was essential for governments to promote reproductive health and rights. Ms Obaid said 350 million couples today lack access to safe and affordable family planning, and 48% of all births in the developing world took place without skilled medical assistance.

``More than 600 Asian women die each day from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, even though we know what needs to be done to reduce maternal deaths,'' she said.

The lifetime risk of maternal death in Asia was 18 times greater than in Europe, she added. Ms Obaid also urged countries to make young people a priority focus. Adolescents comprised more than 20% of the total Asian population, and most were married before the age of 20. Early pregnancy and childbearing posed a grave health risk to adolescent girls, she said.

Her concern was echoed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who said Thailand, like many other countries, was going through a period when the number of young people was at its peak. Girls and young women, he said, would be more affected and were extremely vulnerable to exploitation.

``We need to remain active and address the issues of teenage pregnancy, the high prevalence of HIV/Aids among youth, and to ensure that young people have access to reliable information and services to protect their reproductive health,'' he said.

Despite success in reducing the country's birth rate, Mr Thaksin raised concern over the future increase of the ageing population, which will put severe pressure on the social security system and the welfare of older people. ``Women significantly outnumber men at older ages and many women will not have the economic means to support themselves. This will emerge as a very vulnerable group in the future,'' he said.

Kim Hak-Su, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap), said population issues were at the heart of all these problems.

``The goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not equally addressed,'' Mr Kim said. At the end of the conference today, participants are expected to adopt an action plan to advance the implementation of an international population and development agreement reached at Cairo in 1994. The action plan will seek to highlight the problems and areas that require concerted attention from governments, international donors and organisations and civil society in the next 10 years.

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