UN Population Fund Insistent on Reproductive Rights at Rio

By Timothy Herrmann | April 19, 2012

Today at a UNFPA briefing on the Rio +20 negations entitled: “The Road to Rio goes through Cairo” the agency expressed serious concern about the lack of emphasis in the outcome document on the link between population growth and sustainable development. They were also adamant in their encouragement of states fighting to include reproductive rights in the document and to emphasize the link between access to reproductive rights and health and what they termed “population dynamics”.

According to the UNFPA, sustainable development is not achievable unless population growth is addressed directly. They mentioned that sustainable development is not only a matter of changing consumption patterns but also of fertility regulation which, for the UNFPA, cannot be achieved without making sure that reproductive rights are emphasized in the final outcome document.

In the mind of the UNFPA, guaranteeing reproductive rights and access to reproductive rights services, like contraception, sterilization, and even abortion means guaranteeing that poor populations will be more likely to limit the number of children they have and thus limit the strain that their populations are putting on the environment. The UNFPA labels this kind of logic “population dynamics”. Throughout the briefing the UNFPA representative explained that any increase in population means an increase in economic production and any increase in economic production will mean an increase in resource consumption and environmental degradation. However, he conveniently failed to mention that real economic growth and poverty alleviation is impossible without positive population growth. He also ignored the very real consequences of the demographic winter now faced by countries with declining populations.

The UNFPA briefing is being held at a time when the draft document is already far along in the negotiations process and will be difficult to change. For this reason the UNFPA called states together today to regroup, go back to the drawing board, and come back to negotiations next week with a renewed emphasis on the need to include “population control” on the agenda.

 

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