cairo programme of action
The Cairo Programme of Action is a product of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. Representatives from 179 States met in Cairo to "finalize a Programme of Action on population and development" for the following 20 years (1994-2014). States took a new approach to addressing issues of population and development by emphasizing the importance of "empowering women and providing them with more choices through expanded access to education and health services."
This Programme "advocates making family planning universally available by 2015."
Chapter VII of the Cairo Programme of Action focuses exclusively on reproductive rights and reproductive health.
Reproductive Health & Rights
Objectives of the Programme:
Responsibilities
This Programme "advocates making family planning universally available by 2015."
Chapter VII of the Cairo Programme of Action focuses exclusively on reproductive rights and reproductive health.
Reproductive Health & Rights
- This document defines reproductive health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. It implies that people have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so. Implicit in this is the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice." (Chapter VII)
- "Reproductive rights...rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so" (Chapter VII)
Objectives of the Programme:
- "to help couples and individuals meet their reproductive goals in a framework that promotes optimum health, responsibility, and family well-being, and respects the dignity of all persons and their right to choose the number, spacing, and timing of the birth of their children;
- to prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the incidence of high-risk pregnancies and morbidity and mortality;
- to make quality family-planning services affordable, acceptable, and accessible to all who need and want them, while maintaining confidentiality; and
- to improve the quality of family-planning advice, information, education, communication, counseling and services." (Chapter VII)
Responsibilities
- "Governments and the international community should use the full means at their disposal to support the principle of voluntary choice in family planning."
- All countries should...assess the extent of national unmet need for good-quality family-planning services and its integration in the reproductive health context"
- "Non-governmental organizations should play an active role in mobilizing community and family support, in increasing and access and acceptability of reproductive health service including family planning, and cooperate with governments in the process of preparation and provision of care...and in healping monitor public- and private-sector programmes, including their own." (Chapter VII)