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Have post-ICPD population policies adhered to the Cairo Consensus?

Karen Hardee, Hardee Associates LLC

The ‘Cairo Consensus’ that emerged from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development provided a blueprint for a new era of population policies. In addition to facilitating the demographic transition, countries should provide voluntary family planning in the context of reproductive health care, improve maternal and child health outcomes, promote empowerment of women, and protect individual human rights. Furthermore, development of policies should include broad participation of a range of stakeholders, most notably women and youth. This paper assesses whether population policies developed in Africa and Asia in the 25 years since ICPD have reflected this consensus. While ICPD represented a paradigm shift to reproductive health and rights, in spite of continued discomfort among some advocates about the term ‘population’, population policies since 1994 have continued to focus on reducing population growth through attention to population and sustainable development, with an expanded focus on reproductive health and individual choice and on women’s empowerment. Evolving issues, including the demographic dividend and population and the environment have also been included.

Keywords: Policy, Population size and growth/decline, Family planning and contraception, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

See paper.

  Presented in Session 114. Population Policies and the Demographic Transition