ICPD AT 10 IN THE CARIBBEAN

Summary

A Caribbean Commitment

During the 1990s, the world community organized a number of summits and conferences, among them the World Summit for Children (New York, 1990), the Earth Summit (Rio, 1992); the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993); the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995); the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995), and Habitat (Istanbul, 1996 ), to name but a few.

Not least among them was the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994. It was the third such conference, the previous one having been celebrated in Bucharest (1974) and Mexico (1984). The Programme of Action adopted at the ICPD changed the world's approach to population and development issues. Governments committed to promoting and protecting the reproductive health and rights of couples and individuals on the premise that the stabilization of the world population would be best realized through people's enhanced capacity to exercise their right to decide, freely and responsibly, the number, timing and spacing of their children, and through respect for women's rights to regulate their own fertility.

The ICPD was a milestone in the history of population and development, as well as the history of women's rights. Its Programme of Action, adopted by consensus by 179 countries, is a forward-looking 20-year plan. While the Programme of Action (PoA) is comprehensive and calls for action at various levels, the strategic focus of the recommendations is for action at the national level. The first five-year review of the implementation of the Programme of Action was conducted by the General Assembly in 1999 which adopted, by consensus, the Key Actions for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development. The review showed that the ICPD goals were still valid and that much progress had been made in advancing them. At the same time, it revealed that much greater and urgent action was needed in certain areas.

As we approach the 10th Anniversary of the ICPD, the mid-point of its 20-year Programme of Action, there is much to celebrate and to look forward to. Many countries have been able to translate the commitments they made in Cairo into policies and action programmes designed to transform the lives of women. But much remains to be done. At this point in time, most member states, UNFPA, and other partners believe that the best way to commemorate ICPD is by doing a pragmatic and constructive country-by-country analysis of achievements, of constraints, of lessons learned and to feed back the results so as to enrich and accelerate the implementation of the ICPD PoA. The 10th Anniversary is also an opportunity to reflect on the ICPD goals, and demonstrate how achieving them will contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In June 2003, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on the integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major UN conferences and summits in the economic and social fields. The GA stressed the importance of regular reviews which should assess the progress made in implementation of commitments and provide occasions to reaffirm the goals and objectives agreed at the major conferences. In December 2003, the General Assembly adopted a decision entitled "Commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development". By this decision, the Assembly decided to devote one day, during its fifty-ninth session in 2004, to the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development.

Virtually all Caribbean countries have taken on the Programme of Action and translated it into a variety of laws, policies and programmes. Regionally, it was translated into the adoption of the Caribbean Plan of Action on Population and Development (1995) and the Latin America and Caribbean Plan of Action on Population and Development (1996). Both documents were preceded by the adoption of the Latin America and Caribbean Consensus (1993) and the Port of Spain Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development (1993), which were preparatory to the Cairo Conference.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) held a meeting of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) on 11-12 November 2003, in Port-of-Spain, to review progress in the implementation of the ICPD PoA in the Caribbean region. The twenty Caribbean countries and territories that attended reaffirmed their commitment to ICPD and adopted a declaration to that effect. ECLAC has also held an open-ended meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Ad Hoc Committee on Population and Development in Santiago, Chile on 10-11 March 2004. The meeting of 37 countries in the Western Hemisphere, including twelve from the Caribbean, adopted a declaration reaffirming the commitment of countries to the ICPD goals and highlighting the importance of attaining those goals in order to achieve the MDGs.

In 2003, UNFPA undertook a Field Inquiry on national experiences among all countries, designed to capture progress achieved in implementing the various commitments and recommendations contained in the ICPD Programme of Action, as well as the difficulties and constraints they have faced during its implementation. Among these are the following, as reported by various Caribbean countries during preparations for the subregional meeting of 2003:

Migration in the Caribbean has various dimensions, and countries in their status as recipients of immigration as well as sources of emigration are affected by these flows, both at the individual and collective levels. Among other things, the impact of migration on the socio-economic conditions of small populations is still not fully understood.

While most countries in the Caribbean report on progress made in providing reproductive health services, promoting and protecting reproductive rights has remained of much concern, including the reproductive health needs of persons with disabilities, older persons and young people.

Faced with the increasing HIV/AIDS pandemic and its particular impact on youth in the Caribbean, many governments have agreed on the need to establish national guidelines for prevention, treatment and care, including the promotion of a culture of respect for the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, and the elimination of stigma and discrimination.

To ensure adolescents' healthy and productive transition into early adulthood, the particular needs of out-of-school youth, unemployed youth, and young people whose parents are absent need addressing. Violence against women and girls, including sexual coercion, remains an area of major concern.

As a result of the improvements in living conditions, countries in the Caribbean are undergoing changes in their age structures and are observing an increase in the number of older persons. This trend has become a matter of concern for almost all countries in terms of being able to provide basic social services such as health and social security, as well as guaranteeing the social integration of older persons and respect for their rights.

Also, many government agencies in the Caribbean have expressed serious concerns regarding the weakness of data collection systems and assert the need to improve data collection and analysis, as well as management and dissemination procedures.