Programme of action of the Internatíonal conference on population and development - Chapter XIV: International cooperation - B. Towards a new commitment to funding population and development

Basis for action

14.8. There is a strong consensus on the need to mobilize significant additional financial resources from both the international community and within developing countries andcountries with economies in transition for national population programmes in support of sustainable development. The Amsterdam Declaration on a Better Life for Future Generations, adopted at the International Forum on Population in the Twenty-first Century, held at Amsterdam in 1989, called on Governments to double the total global expenditures in population programmes and on donors toincrease substantially their contribution, in order to meet the needs of millions of people in developing countries in the fields of family planning and other population activities by the year 2000. However, since then, international resources for population activities have come under severe pressure, owing to the prolonged economic recession in traditional donor countries. Also, developing countries face increasing difficulties in allocating sufficient funds for their population and related programmes. Additional resources are urgently required to better identify andsatisfy unmet needs in issues related to population and development, such as reproductive health care, including family-planning and sexual health information and services, as wellas to respond to future increases in demand, to keep pace with thegrowing demands that need to be served, and to improve the scope and quality of programmes.

14.9. To assist the implementation of population and reproductivehealth care, including family-planning and sexual health programmes, financial and technical assistance from bilateral and multilateral agencies have been provided to the national and subnational agencies involved. As some of these began to be successful, it became desirable for countries to learn from one another's experiences, through a number of different modalities(e.g., long- and short- term training programmes, observation study tours and consultant services).

Objectives

14.10. The objectives are:

To increase substantially the availability of international financial assistance in the field of population and development in order to enable developing countries and countries with economies in transition to achieve the goals of the present Programme of Action as they pursue their self-reliant and capacity-building efforts;
To increase the commitment to, and the stability of, international financial assistance in the field of population and development by diversifying the sources of contributions, while striving to avoid as far as possible a reduction in the resources for other development areas. Additional resources should be made available for short-term assistance to the countries with economies in transition;
To increase international financial assistance to direct South-South cooperation and to facilitate financing procedures for direct South-South cooperation.

Actions

14.11. The international community should strive for the fulfilment of the agreed target of 0.7 per cent of the gross national product for overall official development assistance and endeavour to increase the share of funding for population and development programmes commensurate with the scope and scale ofactivities required to achieve the objectives and goals of the present Programme of Action. A crucially urgent challenge to the international donor community is therefore the translation of theircommitment to the objectives and quantitative goals of the present Programme of Action into commensurate financial contributions to population programmes in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. Given the magnitude of the financial resource needs for national population and development programmes(as identified in chapter XIII), and assuming that recipient countries will be able to generate sufficient increases in domestically generated resources, the need for complementary resource flows from donor countries would be in the order of (in1993 US dollars): $5.7 billion in 2000; $6.1 billion in 2005; $6.8billion in 2010; and $7.2 billion in 2015. The international community takes note of the initiative to mobilize resources to give all people access to basic social services, known as the 20/20 initiative, which will be studied further in the context of the World Summit for Social Development.

14.12. Recipient countries should ensure that international assistance for population and development activities is used effectively to meet national population and development objectivesso as to assist donors to secure commitment to further resourcesfor programmes.

14.13. The United Nations Population Fund, other United Nations organizations, multilateral financial institutions, regional banks and bilateral financial sources are invited to consult, with a view to coordinating their financing policies and planning procedures to improve the impact, complementarity and cost-effectiveness of theircontributions to the achievement of the population programmes of the developing countries and countries with economies intransition.

14.14. Criteria for allocation of external financial resources forpopulation activities in developing countries should include:

Coherent national programmes, plans and strategies onpopulation and development;
The recognized priority to the least developed countries;
The need to complement national financial efforts on population;
The need to avoid obstacles to, or reversal of, progress achieved thus far;
Problems of significant social sectors and areas that are not reflected in national average indicators.

14.15. Countries with economies in transition should receive temporary assistance for population and development activities inthe light of the difficult economic and social problems these countries face at present.

14.16. In devising the appropriate balance between funding sources, more attention should be given to South-South cooperationas well as to new ways of mobilizing private contributions, particularly in partnership with non-governmental organizations. The international community should urge donor agencies to improve and modify their funding procedures in order to facilitate and give higher priority to supporting direct South-South collaborative arrangements.

14.17. Innovative financing, including new ways of generating public and private financing resources and various forms of debt relief should be explored.

14.18. International financial institutions are encouraged toincrease their financial assistance, particularly in population and reproductive health, including family planning and sexual healthcare.