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UNFPA seeks to improve the lives and expand the choices of individuals and couples. Over time, the reproductive choices of those who are alive today, multiplied across communities, regions and countries, alter demographic trends.
Changes in the structure, distribution, and size of populations are interlinked with all facets of sustainable development. UNFPA cooperates with countries, at their request, to collect and analyse population data that can help them better understand population trends. This understanding enables governments to formulate and implement effective public policies that address both current and future needs.
The close links between development and reproductive health and gender equality, the other main areas of UNFPA's work, were affirmed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. UNFPA is guided in its work by the Programme of Action adopted there. At the conference, 179 countries agreed that meeting needs for education and health, including reproductive health, is a prerequisite for sustainable development over the longer term. They also agreed on a roadmap for progress with the following goals:
- Universal access to reproductive health services by 2015
- Universal primary education and closing the gender gap in education by 2015
- Reducing maternal mortality by 75 per cent by 2015
- Reducing infant mortality
- Increasing life expectancy
- Reducing HIV infection rates
A strong emphasis on the rights of individual women and men underpins the Programme of Action. This emphasis on human rights marked a shift in population policy and programmes away from a focus on human numbers and placed human lives front and centre. At the Cairo, delegates from all regions and cultures agreed that reproductive health is a basic human right and that individuals have the right to choose the number, timing and spacing of their children.
Reaching the goals of the Programme of Action is also essential for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These eight goals, which are fully aligned with the ICPD roadmap, have the overarching aim of reducing extreme poverty by half by 2015. UNFPA brings its special expertise in reproductive health and demographic issues to the worldwide collaborative effort of meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
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