The observances of World Population Day yesterday were an opportunity to highlight the importance of family planning and to integrate it into national development plans, the UN Population Fund (UNPA) said on Thursday.
The fund has been the target of attacks by conservatives in the US, which charged the fund for favoring abortion in China. UNFPA has rejected the charge.
US President George W Bush, bending conservative demands, last month withheld for the seventh consecutive year the US annual contribution to UNFPA, US$40 million.
UNFPA’s executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said family “is essential to women’s empowerment and gender equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message on World Population Day that family planning has “immediate benefits for the lives and health of mothers and their infants. Let us focus on the critical importance of family planning if we are to successfully achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”
“Let us reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015,” he said, referring to the goals of rolling back the number of deaths in pregnant women because of the lack of health services.
The UN has been calling for effective means to eradicate poverty and hunger by allowing more people to take part in economic development.
UNFPA said family planning can help people have the time to take part in development.
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