Itself far from public eye, UNFPA looks towards the future.

• Author: Sadik, Nafis
• Position: UN Population Funds

At the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), we are in a paradoxical situation. In population, though we - and all our colleagues in 150 countries, the United Nations system and so many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - have had great success, the public in general does not know what UNFPA is and what we do. Our issues are complex, sensitive and not easy to communicate in a few words. Population will slow down only when people choose to have fewer children. And that in turn depends on a number of things, such as whether reproductive health/family planning is available, whether women can make their own choices, and whether education is freely available to girls. Hardly the stuff to hit headlines!

Out of the public eye, we have been highly successful over the last 30 years. For this, we owe a debt of gratitude to our partners who have worked along with us - the members of civil society, including NGOs and Governments themselves. During the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), and in the follow-up activities, NGOs played a vital and essential role. Recognizing their flexibility, to act in areas where Governments are not able or willing to act because of political sensitivity or logistical obstacles, and reflecting a growing international recognition of governments' limitations, the ICPD Programme of Action stressed the involvement of civil society groups in population and development activities.

With the ICPD's adoption of a broad reproductive health agenda and its goal of universal access to reproductive health care, there are possibilities for broader involvement of non-governmental groups in service delivery. Chapter 15 of the ICPD Programme of Action spells out the basis for stronger partnerships with NGOs and the private sector. NGO involvement, it states, should complement Governments' "responsibility to provide full, safe and accessible reproductive health services, including family planning and sexual health services".

This Chapter further notes that "non-governmental groups are already rightly recognized for their comparative advantage in relation to government agencies, because of innovative, flexible and responsive programme design and implementation, including grass-roots participation, and because quite often they are rooted in and interact with constituencies that are poorly served and hard to reach through government channels", and recognizes that "youth organizations are increasingly...