UNITED NATIONS, New York — Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, has welcomed today’s meeting of European Union (EU) development cooperation ministers, which reaffirmed reproductive health and rights as central to efforts to combat poverty. The meeting underlined the importance of the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the session’s main theme.

The ministers met from 26 to 27 October near Maastricht, the Netherlands, and discussed reproductive health and rights as key instruments in reducing poverty. In particular, they looked into ways to speed up the implementation of the Cairo consensus.

“The EU meeting is a confirmation that we cannot reduce poverty and maternal and child deaths, promote women's empowerment, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and ensure sustainable development, unless reproductive health and rights are given the highest priority,” said Ms. Obaid at the Maastricht meeting. “The Millennium Development Goals offer a common framework and focus for collective action to make the right to development a reality. And the Cairo Programme of Action offers a road map to that reality.”

The Dutch Minister for Development and Cooperation and the meeting’s president, Agnes van Ardenne-van der Hoeven, said there was a need to seek long-term solutions to guarantee required levels of reproductive health supplies at the country level. She recalled that EU member States and the European Commission had agreed to provide $75 million through UNFPA to cover some of the commodity gap for this year.

The Maastricht meeting deliberated on EU Presidency proposals that the “current 25-member European Union must continue to stand firm on the Cairo consensus. It must also stand firm on the full implementation of the agenda and contribute to poverty reduction and attainment of the MDGs. It is the poor who often lack access to information, family planning services or affordable and reliable contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

In addition to reproductive health and rights, the ministers discussed ways to improve EU policies in support of developing countries, in addition to issues of peace, security and development, particularly in Africa.

The renewed European show of support for the Cairo consensus, UNFPA and its work followed a partnership agreement that the Fund signed two days earlier with 79 developing countries -- forming the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. The agreement was meant to strengthen their cooperation on development and poverty reduction efforts.

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UNFPA is the world’s largest multilateral source of population assistance. Since it became operational in 1969, the Fund has provided substantial assistance to developing countries, at their request, to address their population and development needs. Making motherhood safer for all women is at the heart of UNFPA’s mandate.

Contact Information:

Omar Gharzeddine
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5028
Email: gharzeddine@unfpa.org

Abubakar Dungus
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5031
Email: dungus@unfpa.org