Predictions for Cairo: A Reaffirmation, A Reversal, A Realignment, and A Refusal

By Adil Najam
Environmental Conservation, Vol. 21(2), Pages 105-109.

What appears below is the original submission which may have been editorially, but not substantively changed for publication. To send comments or request hard copies of this, or my other publications, please send email to anajam@mit.edu.

If the experience of Bucharest and Mexico City has anything to say about the forthcoming International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), scheduled to be held at Cairo from 5 to 13 September, 1994, it would be to underscore the futility of trying to make predictions about an international gathering of this magnitude, on a subject that inspires such fierce emotional and political attachments. In a world that, in many ways, is more politically turbulent than that of 1974 and 1984, it is futile to even attempt guessing what political happenings might transpire by September and what effects they might have on the conference. However, it may be instructional to attempt analyzing the preparatory process as it has progressed thus far to see what it might suggest about the direction that the population debate has taken since the Mexico City conference and what shape it is likely to take after Cairo.

The Preparatory Process:

The preparatory process for ICPD has essentially built upon that of the last two conferences, with some changes that can be linked directly to the experience of Bucharest and Mexico City. Following the tradition of technical `expert groups,' conference organizers have again organized a set of six such meetings. Although the issues discussed were similar to those discussed prior to Bucharest and Mexico City, the choice of subjects is indicative of how the debate has developed since the 1974 conference at Bucharest. The one area that has remained the same through the three conferences is that titled `population, environment and development.' In comparison to Bucharest, where even the mention of the words `family planning' and `population growth' triggered red flags, three different groups were assigned to specifically look at issues of `family planning, health and family well-being,' `population growth and demographic structure,' and `population policies and programs.' The very titles of these groups signify the near universality in the acceptance of family planning and population growth as legitimate concerns for international policy discourse. (See ICPD, 1994).

Although the conference is explicitly one on population and development, and ostensibly because of that reason, a separate group on population and development is not constituted and the linkage is presumed to be discussed within the context of each group. However, reminiscent of the raging issues at Bucharest and an indicator of their continuing salience is the group on `population distribution and migration.' The most important group with respect to the direction the conference is likely to take is the one on `population and women.' Not previously the subject of separate expert group deliberations, this may be seen as a preemptive move by conference organizers to deal with the subject that is most likely to take center stage at Cairo. (See ICPD, 1994).

It is not only in the choice of expert groups that the conference organizers seem to be responding to the evolving nature of the population debate and the experience of the last two conferences. The management of political inputs from national representatives into the preparatory process also reflects a conscious effort to preempt any ugly and unanticipated controversies from emerging at the conference itself. As before, five regional consultations have been held. However, this time around they were held far earlier in the process with enough time for their recommendations to be incorporated into the draft texts.

More significantly, as many as three meetings of the preparatory committee-practically a committee of the whole-have been held. The representation here is of national delegates representing the political views of their nations rather than experts participating in their individual capacity. Since conference documents have been extensively deliberated in this political forum it is less likely for a major surprise to be sprung, as it was at Bucharest.

Having said the above, one should always be weary of too much complacency on this count in any international conference. Those who represent nations in the participatory phase of conferences are invariably-and by necessity-middle-order, quasi-technical, career bureaucrats. However, representation at the conference itself is at a higher political level, often Ministerial. Although these two groups have far more in common than, say, politicians and technical experts, they invariably have different time-horizons for decision making, address different audiences, respond to different constituencies, and thereby tend to use the conference platform differently. While involving Ministerial representation throughout the preparatory process is obviously impractical, it is important to leave room for a few surprises in how national positions are presented at preparatory meetings and how they are presented at the final conference.

Finally, a major difference in the Cairo process is the involvement of the nongovernmental community. Much like, but much more so than in, previous conferences the informational material prepared by the conference secretariat stresses with pride the steps taken to involveme NGOs in the conference preparations. However, there are important differences in the role NGOs are playing in the Cairo process and the role they have played in past meetings. First, the NGO forum which had been a part of Bucharest but had been dropped at Mexico City for budgetary reasons, will once again be featured at Cairo. Much more important, however, is the changed makeup of the NGOs that are participating in the preparatory process and how they are participating. Although NGOs had played critical roles at both Bucharest and Mexico City, it were the large NGOs of the population establishment who had been allowed to do so. Moreover, they had done so either as formal members of the organizing team for the conferences or in close accord with the organizers.

The Cairo process, is different with respect to NGOs in two important ways. First, ICPD has attracted the participation of a far more diverse set of NGO interests in terms of geographical representation, in relation to thematic areas of activity, and in terms of size. The new inclusion of a) NGOs from the developing countries, b) NGOs from other related fields (e.g. environment, women issues and human rights) which have not traditionally been a part of the population establishment, and c) smaller NGOs with more localized but focused constituencies, has brought issues to the preparatory process that might otherwise not have gained the attention they are now gaining. This is most dramatically evident in the case of the new importance being given to the women's health agenda. Second, NGOs are playing a far more actively critical role in the Cairo process than they did in the earlier conferences. They are operating more as `watchdogs' to conference organizers and national delegations than as `collaborators.'

In sum, NGOs will arrive at Cairo not simply as the conscience of the conference but as a dynamic and heterogeneous set of political actors with multiple interests (as opposed to a single interest-i.e. family planning), responding to multiple constituencies, and speaking to multiple audiences. In this respect, the role of NGOs at Cairo will be molded more in the cast of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro conference on environment and development, than in that of either Bucharest or Mexico City (see Najam, 1993a).

Given the insights obtained from the ICPD preparatory process as it has proceeded thus far, and the legacy of the last two UN population conferences, what can we say about the directions that the evolving population agenda may take at Cairo? Four predictions are made here:

A Reaffirmation:

The one striking lesson of the 1974 and 1984 world conferences on population, as well as the many other conferences on related issues-including the 1972 and 1992 world conferences on environment-is that the development agenda introduced by the developing countries of the South at Bucharest is here to stay. Nothing could possibly reaffirm it more than the fact that unlike all the previous UN conferences on the subject, the delegates at Cairo will be gathering not simply to discuss population issues but to discuss population and development issues. Statements by various national delegates, both in the deliberations within Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) on whether to hold the conference at all and during the three ICPD Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings stressed the need to explicitly add the word `development' to the nomenclature of the conference. At least for the South, this is not simply a question of semantics; it is an articulation of their expectations of the conference's scope and mandate.

Although partly symbolic in its significance, the reaffirmation of the population-development linkage is not without its tangible implications. Most immediately, it gives the developing countries an additional rationale to demand increased developmental funding from those interested in reducing global numbers. It is also being used by conference organizers to highlight a focus on `sustainable development' and thereby linking the conference to the issue of environment, which unlike population is the raging favorite of general publics, political legislatures, and the media in the industrialized countries.

More than that, to an increasing number of population experts, especially practicioner-scholars working in the field, the importance of the link is becoming ever more clear (see Warwick, 1982, Hernandez, 1984). Yet, it is still not clear what population projects under a truly integrated approach would actually look like. Nor is the lack of willingness amongst the international community to follow rhetoric with action ceased to be an issue (Miro 1977: 429). However, the realization that population stabilization cannot occur without concurrent economic development has become a cardinal principle of the field. The question really is how (as opposed to whether) the two can be incorporated, especially in a world where international assistance comes in compartmentalized packages and where even in agreeing that the best investment in population is education for women, few are prepared to spend dollars earmarked for `population activities' on building schools for girls.

Although the concept of linking population and development has received no opposition in and of itself, efforts to link the expenditures in the two fields have already elicited strong resistance from the donor countries, especially the US. For example, one of the still unresolved-and potentially contentious-issue concerns expenditure packages being proposed in the draft documents. The US position is that while the importance of "social sector investments"-on issues such as elevating the status of women, universal education, child survival and environment-are extremely important, they should not distract funds from "core" population issues such as family planning. Others, particularly developing country NGOs and some Southern governments, call for a "truly broad" approach which does not confine expenditures into narrow confines and allows funds to be used to develop package programs which might provide individuals not only with the means (i.e. contraception) to control population but also the reason (i.e. economic development) to do so.

Others in the South are worried, that the seeming consensus on the issue actually camouflages a resistance to actually tackle the issue. Mahbub-ul-Haq (1994: 5), for example, feels that although "the Cairo Conference is labeled UN Conference on Population and Development" the deliberations have talked "a great deal about population but precious little about development." In referring to the Action Plan being prepared for post-Cairo implementation, he adds that "it is time to restore our developmental perspective and to re-asses our action programs" because "we cannot slip a condom on global poverty."

A Reversal:

The one prediction that can be made with confidence about the Cairo conference concerns US efforts to wrest back the leadership in the field of international population activities that the Reagan administration abdicated at Mexico City. The United States had found itself to be in an isolated position-albeit for very different reasons-both at Bucharest and at Mexico City. In 1974. it was pushing hard for population control and was opposed by developing countries who insisted that "development was the best contraceptive." By 1984, most developing countries had become concerned with their population growth and came to Mexico chanting positions more supportive of family planning. However, this time the US took a sudden U-turn on its policy, renouncing its earlier position which it now considered to have been "an overreaction." Instead, the US proclaimed that "population growth is, of itself, a neutral phenomenon" (PDR, 1984).

It is clear from the preparatory process thus far that the United States will be trying its best not to be isolated at Cairo. In fact, during the ICPD PrepComs the US delegation, led by Timothy Wirth, has implicitly promised a reversal its much criticized `Mexico City Policy.' It has already announced the reinstatement of US assistance to United Nations Fund Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation(IPPF), and has also pledged an increase in overall US funds for international population assistance. The fact that Vice President Al Gore will visit Cairo during the conference, will add more symbolic support to the importance that the United States is attaching to the conference.

However, there are a number of fault lines along which the US may become the target of criticism at Cairo. Amongst them is the already discussed issue of exactly how any moneys allocated for population will be used. Another, potentially more contentious, issue is that of population and consumption. Ever since Bucharest-in fact, since before that-the South has resisted any attempt that suggested population growth as the motor of global environmental degradation. It has insisted that the environmental crisis is of the North's making and the North must pay for it. It has further been skeptical of Northern attempts to talk about global population pressures, which it sees as a ploy to shift the responsibility on the South. This feeling has only intensified over time. In fact, during the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) developing countries resisted any direct reference to population and the final declaration only included an obscure reference to "demographic policy" (see Najam, 1993a). Moreover, the South has responded to any mention of population pressures on the environment with the counter argument that the real culprit is consumption in the North. With the conference organizers as well as the US delegation having chosen to focus on sustainable development as the cardinal issue, it is likely that Cairo will became yet another arena for the population and consumption debate.

Gauging by US statements to the Cairo PrepComs it seems that the United States delegation is both aware of the likelihood of such arguments flaring up and ready to diffuse them. The US attitude has till now been reconciliatory, and it has avoided Malthusian arguments or taking the defensive stance on environmental issues adopted by the Bush administration at UNCED:

Such statements say little about how the US is likely to react if aggressively pushed on either of these issues by the more militant Southern nations. However, they do indicate a mood change. At both Bucharest and Mexico City (and also at Stockholm and Rio), the US delegation was `strong in its convictions' and ready to take strong positions and then defend them strongly. The mood enroute to Cairo is decidedly one of reconciliation and accommodation. Unlike earlier conferences where the US attempted to assume leadership by defining the issues and the agenda, the strategy for Cairo seems to be to assume `leadership through listnership.' How far the US is willing to carry this approach-and how far the leaders in the South are willing to let the US carry it-will only become clear at Cairo.

A Realignment:

If the defining issue at Bucharest was population, and that at Mexico City was human rights, the Cairo agenda will most likely be defined by issues of women's health and reproductive rights. Like human rights, the issue of women's rights is not new to UN population conferences. Commentators at previous conferences have felt that this was an issue on which both unanimity and progress was recorded. Not so in the preparatory process for the Cairo conference.

At Bucharest, according to J. Grant Burke (1974: 370), "all nations agreed, in rare unanimity, that a higher status for women was inherently desirable and important for development. No nation disagreed with this thesis; none dared." The Mexico City conference, according to Johnson (1987: 278), "represented a net advance on Bucharest" in the importance it gave to the status and role of women. However, women activists today argue that both 1974 and 1984 had done little, if anything, in way of ensuring the rights of women. In fact, they argue that within the context of population policy women have largely been seen as "the objects rather than the subjects" of population control (see Hartmann, 1987).

Historically, feminists have been strong supporters and pioneers of the birth control movement (see Kennedy, 1970; Back, 1989). However, many women's groups, especially those from the developing countries, now see much of birth control being coercive and especially abusive to women's health. This creates a certain rift within feminist groups, sometimes across North-South lines. For most part, however, women groups have united in a strong movement against coercive family planning practices and for women's health and reproductive rights.

In some ways the women's reproductive rights agenda, as well as its proponents, are new to the setting of UN population conferences. As for the proponents, Bucharest and Mexico City were largely attended by men. The same will be true for Cairo, but less so. Some key players at Cairo, including the Secretary-General of the conference and an increased (but still unproportionately small) number of official delegates will be women. More importantly, Cairo will be attended by a large number of women's groups from both North and South. These groups were largely absent at Bucharest and Mexico, as was the agenda they are projecting.

By focusing on women's health, women are questioning the whole approach to family planning as well as many of the most `successful' methods. Since `success' in family planning has, till now, been measured in terms of its effect on fertility levels, little attention has been paid to what it does to women's health. This is particularly so for methods such as Norplant, which have been widely distributed by population groups and government agencies despite the many side effects and dangers that often result from its use.

The issue of reproductive rights is largely being debated within the Cairo context as the issue of abortion, and women's right to control their own bodies. The three PrepComs have failed to resolve the language or the definitions surrounding this issue and the Vatican is leading the opposition on "moral grounds" implying that not only the reproductive rights agenda legitimize abortions, it also legitimizes other "unacceptable" sexual practices (See Holy See, 1994).

A Refusal:

Cairo will be the third consecutive attempt by UN agencies and the population establishment to urge nations to adopt quantitative population targets. In all likelihood, Cairo will also be the third consecutive time that member states will refuse any forms of numerical targets.

Numerical targets were supposed to be one of the major output of the Bucharest process. However, the attempt to set such targets was resisted right from the preparatory process onwards. Delegates argued that they were an infringement of national sovereignty, would violate the principle of diversity of national demographic-socio-economic conditions, and could be used as conditionality by the international community. Tabbarah (1974: 440) reports that so strong were the views of the antagonists that at one point this issue constituted the most serious threat to the consensus that was later to emerge around the 1974 World Population Plan of Action.

At Mexico City, another attempt was made to resolve, what the organizers saw to be, "the sensitive but vital issue of setting numerical targets for average family size or for a national fertility level to be achieved by a specific date" (Tabah, 1984: 83). Once again, the process was repulsed by the member states on similar grounds, during the preparatory process itself.

From the very beginning of the Cairo process, conference secretary general. Nafis Sadik, has been emphasizing the need for quantitative targets (ICPD, 1994). Once again, national representatives have reacted in a similar fashion. Adding to the opposition of national delegates is opposition from many NGO groups who feel that the urge to meet targets would induce coercive practices in the design and implementation of family planning programs (Najam, 1993b). The issue came up at the third and final PrepCom and after staunch opposition from many was left unresolved for the conference itself to decide. All indications suggest that Cairo's verdict on this issue will be no different than that of Bucharest or Mexico City.

Summary:

This paper analyzes the preparatory process for the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) to see what it might suggest about the direction that the population debate has taken since the 1974 World Population Conference at Bucharest and its successor conference held at Mexico City in 1984. Given the insights obtained from the ICPD preparatory process, and the legacy of the last two UN population conferences, what can we say about the directions that the evolving population agenda may take at Cairo?

In answering this question, this paper makes four predictions: a) the linkage between population and development will be reaffirmed; b) United State's `Mexico City Policy' will be formally reversed as the US will seek to recapture the leadership role in the field that it conceded in 1984; c) women's health issues will take centerstage as a new focus in the ongoing debate on the larger `population question' as the agenda is again realigned; and d) nations wil once again refuse attempts by the population establishment to adopt quantitative population targets.

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