Global Policy Forum

Africa risks failure to implement several aspects of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 target except it takes urgent measures toward poverty alleviation and resolution of prevailing armed conflicts on the continent, the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned. UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid told PANA Thursday that Africa will have difficulties to attain the set goals if perennial armed conflicts and rampant poverty were not urgently addressed.

Obaid spoke on the eve of the opening of an international conference to review Africa's progress on the implementation of the Action Programme of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The content of Programme of Action of the ICPD includes the reduction of poverty, the provision of family planning services, the intensification of the fight against HIV/AIDS, the education of the girl child and women empowerment to make them less vulnerable to poverty and sexual abuses.

The UN General Assembly integrated these objectives into the Millennium Development Goals it adopted in 2000. The UN General Assembly is expected to review the MDGs next year to assess the level of achievement on each set of goals.

Sounding wary about the implementation of clear population policies by many African countries, Obaid predicated that the number of young people in Africa could increase by 40 percent by 2015, and if no concrete action is taken now, there would be 2.5 million maternal deaths, 7.5 million mortality and 4.9 million maternal disabilities. Moreover, she said if the HIV/AIDS pandemic is not fought vigorously, it could kill nearly 274 million people, most of them in Africa, by 2015. After stressing the importance of the youth population in Africa, she asked: "how could governments provide essential services contained in the MDGs when the population is growing as fast as what we see today in Africa?"

Without predicting what measures the ministerial meeting which opens here Friday recommend, the UNFPA director argued that the present context causes particular constraints for African governments to show stronger national will about resolving population issues.

Obaid insists that governments should show their commitment by allocating more domestic resources to health and reproductive health. She also urged them to ensure that reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programmes go together, and ensure the enactment and enforcement of laws on women empowerment, girl child education and violence against women.

"These issues impact on almost all other areas of development be, it the fight against HIV/AIDS, the provision of education or health care services, because in a poverty setting all these problems increase". She cited several measures already being taken by UNFPA to enhance the capacity of governments to plan their population and tackle issues outlined in the MDGs.

But Obaid again warned against too much reliance on donor funding, which she said, is unable to effectively sustain local population programmes.

Meanwhile, UNFPA regional director for Africa, Fama Hane Ba urged the African media to help mobilise public and government opinions to give adequate attention to population and reproductive health planning. "The good stories are not always reported from Africa. This is unfortunate and our media professionals ought to see the difference between practices of their counterparts in the North where most development issues are already taken care of, and the context in Africa where everything has to be done from scratch," she told PANA.

Mrs Ba announced that plans are underway for a new partnership with the African media to enhance local understanding on essential population and reproductive health issues, but insisted that all media-support programmes must show clear signs of self- sustainability in order to gain UNFPA assistance.

Some 53 African countries, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and UNFPA are represented at the ministerial meeting that opened here Friday. They are expected to produce a regional report on the ICPD programme of action (ICPD/PA) for the Africa region.

Experts have been drafting the document, which will identify the factors that can either facilitate or hinder the implementation of the ICPD/PA objectives. It also assesses and compares the progress realised on population issues in the five sub-regions of Africa.