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Report from the International Conference on Population and Development

Susanne Paul
Cairo, Egypt, 5-11 September, 1994

Cairo welcomed more than 12,000 foreign visitors to the United Nations 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held September 5-11. Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak called on a number of distinguished older Egyptians to organize the event. Among them, Aziza Hussein, one of the country's leading NGO leaders in the field of population and social protection and Aida Gindy, who was the first woman--and African--to lead UNICEF in Europe.

Despite the enormous scale and detail of the arrangements, the Egyptian hosts created an impressively hospitable environment. More than 1,000 Egyptian university students, all speaking English or other UN languages fluently, dressed in similar outfits, revealed the human face of Egypt at the Conference. They guided, informed, consoled, fetched, troubleshot, gave aspirin and charmed their visitors.

Two massive conference\exhibition centers, a-bout a mile apart, housed the official conference and the simultaneous NGO Forum. The plush official site, outfitted with the latest fax machines and computer-driven inquiry systems, had walls of glass disclosing the nearby Cairo neighborhood and brilliant sunny sky. In Cheops Hall, speakers addressed the delegates beneath a deep blue mural, with abstract pyramids and a three-dimensional logo of the globe.

Aging issues claimed a far larger place on the agenda in Cairo than at any previous UN conference outside the aging field. Suzanne Mubarak, in her welcome to the NGO community, spoke about the growing number of older persons in the great global population transition. "Just as we are concerned with investing in the children of tomorrow," she said, "we must also be concerned and plan for the elderly. Human security spans our entire life and is no longer only a matter of national concern, but ... a global responsibility."

UN Secretary-General Boutrous-Ghali likewise referred to aging in his address to the Conference. He asked delegates, "How can we protect the dignity and well-being of the old?" Most importantly, the Conference document (called the Programme of Action) included abundant references to population ageing and to steps insuring the well-being of older persons.

From New York came Nafis Sadik, the dynamic Pakistani medical doctor who heads the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). More than two years ago, as Conference Secretary-General, she had started to construct a conference with a special focus on women's issues, responding to calls from Helen Hughes of Australia, Rebecca Cook of Canada, Maria Isabel Plata of Columbia and many others. Dr. Fred Sai, of Ghana, who chaired the Preparatory Committee and led the Conference Main Committee, had helped craft a women-centered document, along with an active NGO Women's Caucus.

Feminists hailed the document as giving women's cause the strongest support it has ever enjoyed at the UN. The theory underlying the document had a simple and compelling logic: If women can participate fully in the life of their societies, by being wanted as children, fed equally, schooled and given opportunities for work and having access to fertility control, then women will learn how to regulate their fertility and choose to have fewer children.

Aging advocates welcomed the focus on women, too, since women are the overwhelming majority in later life and older women suffer from disadvantages accumulated in their earlier years. If women's education, health and reproductive rights can be improved, women in later life will clearly benefit.

Aging advocates did not have to be satisfied by this indirect victory. Unlike earlier population conferences in Bucharest (1974) and Mexico City (1984), aging issues were this time an integral part of the Conference's work. Credit for this is due to the strong NGO presence in the conference preparations, but UNFPA deserves much credit as well. It has laid the ba-sis for new attitudes within the UN system, through its steadily increased commitment to population aging and its sponsorship of key work in the field.

More than a year ago, the New York NGO Committee on Aging at the UN, of which I am chair, decided to intervene in the Preparatory Committee process which drafted the Cairo document. Virginia Hazzard of AARP and Peter Walker of Psychologists for the Study of Society drew up proposed language and led an effective committee effort. Their primary goal was to make aging an integral part of the text. In addition to writing new language, they also re-wrote and submitted previously ratified, but largely unenforced, statements on aging--with the hope that the ICPD document will add muscle and gain funding for implementation. Thanks to many long hours of work in the Prep-Coms, Virginia, Peter and their colleagues successfully won some thirty references to aging by mid-1994. Delegates accepted most of these suggestions before departing for Egypt.

The aging references in the final document take several forms. First, there are direct references to population aging as a major social issue, with important and growing consequences in the future. The document speaks about longevity increases in all countries and its impact on families and on social protection systems. It affirms the concept of older persons as productive human resources and acknowledges their important role as care-givers within families. Chapter 6, Section B of the document contains the most important aging statement.

Second, the document advocates broad supportive policies towards older persons. In 6B, it sets out three main policy objectives: (1)promoting self-reliance of the elderly through em-ployment and other opportunities for self-expression and independence, (2)developing social systems of health care and income protection, and (3)developing programs to help families care for their older members.

Third, the document advocates some very specific policy options. In particular, it reflects women's influence by highlighting the need for women to gain better access to social security and to other protection measures in later life. The document also calls for research initiatives that would consider discrimination towards older women. It urges more attention to reproductive and sexual health of older persons. And it aims to overcome the harmful health effects of addictive substances on older people. When the document's broader programs call for community participation, they specifically mention older persons among those to be included.

The document should give us cause for celebration. But I had a few after-thoughts about what it might have said. First, aging concepts could have been more centrally located in the theoretical structure of the document, as women's issues now are. The document might have argued, for instance, that couples are more likely to opt for smaller families if societies provide adequately for older people. An investment in the well-being of older citizens is a population investment, too.

Second, the document could have emphasized more fully the central role of older family members as carers of children, and as providers of help within the household. The document might have criticised the growing view that the well-being of children and of older persons are at odds; instead it could have affirmed the interrelation of the well-being of all, throughout the life course, as a precondition for effective fertility reduction.

Third, I wish the document had not remained silent on the pain and suffering inflicted by the Bretton Woods Institutions--the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund--through their "Structural Adjustment Programs" and shock therapies. Many delegates and NGO representatives spoke of these things in the corridors and in meetings, but the document itself said nothing. These institutions have harmed older people--as well as mothers, children and families. They have stripped older people of their hard-earned pensions in many lands (Latin America and Eastern Europe in particular) and they have taken away social services in nearly a hundred countries. I think it's time we face reality and speak out.

Virginia Hazzard and I focussed mostly on providing information and networking among delegates, press and the NGO community. We had an information booth--the only one devoted to aging among the 125 booths at the NGO Forum--where we handed out UN literature, as well as publications of the NGO Committee. Several hundred people, mainly from North Africa, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia visited the booth. Most were women, who were staff of family associations, medical units, family planning offices, and health ministries, as well as some academics and religious leaders. They came with inquiries and with rich stories from their own experience--about lives and difficulties of older people. Hopefully, we can expand on these contacts.

The conference had its light moments. One day, as Virginia and I stood in the corridor outside the official plenary, we watched the press pounce on delegates and we chuckled over the fact that the 3,800 member press corps nearly outnumbered the delegates themselves. Suddenly it was our turn! Hot floodlights swung towards us and a video camera zeroed in, as we were interviewed--in slightly rusty French--for Egyptian Television's European service.

During the Conference, we put on two workshops: "Contributions and Needs of Older Persons" and "Aging Issues at ICPD." We also screened the new UN video/film on aging, "Portraits of Age," by Simone diBagno, which won rave reviews from its international audience. On Friday, September 9, Virginia and I addressed the official plenary, to urge more attention to the gifts and talents of older persons. Then, with the conference ended, an Egyptian friend took me out to Giza to marvel at the pyramids.

As I boarded the airplane for the trip back to New York, memories of the pyramids, of wonderful conversations and of international solidarity elated me. But as the plane droned a-way the long hours, and Egypt disappeared beyond the horizon, I remembered how much more remains to be done.