'2015 Will Not Come Too Soon'.

• Author: Becker, Barbara
• Position: Global population control and sexual health efforts - Brief Article

Consider for a moment:

* In the time it takes you to read this article, 30 adolescents will contract HIV/AIDS.

* Over the next 24 hours, the equivalent of four jumbo jets full of women will die from pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in low-income countries.

* Over the next week, 38,460 girls will be subjected to female genital mutilation.

The statistics are staggering. But for those of us who sometimes want to throw up our arms in despair and wish these global reproductive health problems would simply go away, there is a lot to be hopeful about today.

Since February, Governments and activists from around the world have been gathering to assess what has happened in the five years since the historic United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. Throughout this process, known as ICPD+5, they have found some heartening success stories. And while some significant obstacles remain, they are recommitting themselves to further action.

It was in Cairo that nations from around the world agreed that population is about people, about empowering women in the economic, social and political spheres, and about meeting individual's reproductive health needs within the framework of human rights. In a historic consensus led by the United States, 179 countries determined that improving women's reproductive health and increasing their status in society are essential ingredients to a country's sustainability and growth.

If this seems like common sense, consider that experts used to believe that population was simply a numbers game that could be remedied by providing people with inexpensive contraceptives. Unfortunately, this misguided belief at times led to coercive programmes that violated human rights in a number of nations. The Indian Government, for example, in the 1970s undertook a programme to reduce its population through forced sterilizations. That programme backfired; men and women across India lost faith in family planning methods for years afterwards.

How is the world doing five years after the Cairo Conference? Some signs are encouraging. Of the 28 African countries where female genital mutilation is prevalent, 7 have outlawed the practice over the past five years. Seven countries across the world have acted to make abortion safer by easing legal restrictions on the procedure.

In the United States, the rate of unintended teen pregnancies has fallen. Significantly, discussing the specifics of...