The Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) is concerned by the societal socio-economic impact COVID-19 has created in the region, including the impact on employment and in unpaid care work, impact on health, including reproductive health services, and the impact of domestic violence during lockdowns. Credit: Bhuwan Sharma/IPS

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sep 17 2020 (IPS)

The negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be felt long after the COVID-19 health risk is resolved, a high-level meeting under the auspices of the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), heard.

Parliamentarians and civil society met today, Sept. 17, to discuss policy changes in Asia and the Pacific Region during COVID-19. They also reflected on policy changes since the Nairobi Summit on International Conference on Population Development (ICPD25) last year. This was the second-high level meeting held to discuss the ICPD25 conference this week. Earlier the Arab region met to discuss their Nairobi commitments.

Yoko Kamikawa, chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population, in a recorded speech noted the pandemic had affected many people, expanding inequality. “Disparity may widen,” she said, and as a result, society may become more divided.

“We are very much concerned how much societal socio-economic impact COVID-19 has created, including the impact on employment and in unpaid care work, impact on health, including reproductive health services, and the impact of domestic violence during lockdowns.”

Davide De Beni, Health Economist for United Nations Population Fund’s Asia Pacific Regional Office, painted a bleak picture for the Asia region with only East Asia being the exception. This is largely because of China, which is expected to grow at 1.8 percent this year.

However, the overall contraction of 0.7 percent for the region this year hid the state of some countries like the Maldives and Thailand. Both these countries were less affected by the pandemic than by the international economic fallout.

The Maldives, which is dependent on tourism, saw its economy contract by 20.5 percent and Thailand by 8 percent. These figures, taken from the Asian Development Bank report from this week, “showed the path to recovery remained precarious and nobody knows what to expect,” De Beni said.

De Beni said government action taken was unprecedented and ranged from fiscal policies to mitigate tax relief and sector-specific support with central banks cutting rates. However, the “scale, the scope and the duration (of these measures) are often limited and also provide a limited stimulus to the economy”.

He warned that the social, economic and health dimension of the crisis and social protection is likely to become even more relevant in the emergent phase and the recovery phase of this crisis.

There were projections that in 2020 maternal mortality ratios could increase by between 17 and 43 percent – and from data collected in both Bangladesh and Myanmar, these projections are in line with the reality.

Family planning too was problematic with the unmet need for effective family planning expected to spike from between 21 to 40 percent.

This could amount to a human rights crisis – with mental health issues, gender-based violence and other harmful practises exacerbated.

Rose Hadley, consultant and expert, concentrated on the ICPD programme of action looking at Sri Lanka and Lao, and acknowledged that while things had changed significantly since the Nairobi summit, both countries had made commitments following the summit.

Sri Lanka had created strong policy statements for women and youth, even to the point of targeting certain occupations where women were particularly vulnerable. 

Fielding questions on concerns COVID-19 had created increased pressures for women and vulnerable groups – including increased suicides, early marriages, gender-based violence,

Hadley said that education and the primary health care system were both keys to finding resolutions to these challenges.

“Education is keeping girls out of early marriages. Promoting education is passing health information to children … Investigating in education is investing in health, and it is investing in economic development,”  Hadley said.

While she was not an expert on mental health – she believed it was time for the revival of the primary health care system. Primary health facilities could scene for mental health, help address gender-based violence and basic sexual reproductive health and rights.

Sri Lanka had during the COVID-19 period expanded a national hotline for women to a 24-hour service. This was critical for a lot of families stuck at home during lockdowns and where they were unable to go out or access services easily.

Meirinda Sebayang, chair of civil society organisation Jaringan Indonesia Positive, said COVID-19 meant that in her country maternal mortality was expected to rise as 28 percent of the health centres were not fully functioning. This also meant unmet needs for families.

One organisation tracked the statistics during the pandemic and found that there were a high number of gender-based violence cases, One survey also showed that 96 percent of respondents reported that the burden of household work was increasing. Many respondents cited a rise in household expenditure was creating stress.

Sebayang’s organisation surveyed about 1,000 respondents. The results indicated that people living with HIV in Indonesia were finding it challenging to access their medication.

Limited mobility during lockdowns meant an increase in sexual and gender-based violence at home and these might have “contributed to the unwanted pregnancies and also for unsafe abortions”.

Sebayang said it was essential to create protocols to deal with a pandemic. While civil society could reduce the impact of the disease, it required working together with government and service providers.

She pointed to several successes, like the use of smartphones for the treatment of tuberculosis patients.

“So, I think there are many, many things that we can do. We have to become more innovative and also have to have strong collaborations with the service providers, the government and also other civil society organisations and try to be inclusive … to find a way to win over this enemy.”

Dr. Osamu Kusumoto, Executive Director/Secretary-General of APDA, reminded the delegates that there was an advantage now.

“About 100 years ago (during the Spanish flu epidemic), there were no measures, but now we can discuss countermeasures.  We should think about work together,” he said, closing the meeting.

Meanwhile, earlier in this week Arab parliamentarians met to discuss the Nairobi commitments. While there had been a strong representation of the region at the summit, a report indicated some concern about the regions’ lack of commitment to several important challenges including maternal deaths among adolescent girls; unintended pregnancies; research and knowledge generation; capacity development of health providers and strengthening health care.

There was a call for youth-related commitments in the countries to be scaled up, especially support for youth associations and networks.

There was also a call for the countries to take more decisive action on female gender mutilation, child marriage, gender-based violence services and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against all women and girls.

Morocco acknowledged it had significant challenges ahead of it. Yet, it said it had achieved some progress in lowering the literacy rate, which was 90 percent in 2014 against 58 percent in 1994. Child mortality had dropped from 80 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 22.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018, and maternal mortality decreased from 332 deaths in 1992 to 72.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017.

In addition, more women and youth were in positions of leadership.

Palestine, likewise, outlined key priorities including the adoption of it’s Family Protection Law, raise the marriageable age and the adoption of a cross-sectoral approach towards sexual and reproductive health and rights.

ICPD awareness-raising campaigns in rural Tadjourah and Ali Sabieh in Djibouti, organised by the Parliamentary Group of Population and Development (PGPD). Courtesy: PGPD.

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Mar 24 2020 (IPS)

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is still widely practised in the African country of Djibouti. Despite efforts by the government and development agencies to curb this practice, culture, tradition and religion continue to slow down progress.

According to Hassan Omar Mohamed, a Member of Parliament from the Djibouti House of Assembly, FGM is a deeply-rooted practice that has stood the test of time.

• The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) describes FGM as a practice that involves altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons.  It is internationally recognised as a human rights violation.
• Globally, it is estimated that 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM. UNFPA states that, although FGM is declining in the majority of countries where it is prevalent, most of these are also experiencing a high rate of population growth – meaning that the number of girls who undergo FGM will continue to grow if efforts are not significantly scaled up.

Latest data from UNFPA and UNICEF reveal that 78 percent of women and girls in Djibouti are still subjected to FGM. 

In November, United Nations member states gathered in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi to renew a promise made 25 years ago to end harmful practices against women and girls including FGM.

It is for that reason that the Government of Djibouti has intensified awareness-raising efforts, which has resulted in reduced FGM cases, although the practice continues. 

“Education and training are the means which facilitate the change of behaviour,” said Omar Mohamed, adding that the change of attitude will lead to the total abandonment of the practice.

Djibouti participated at the Nairobi Summit and made resolutions following the 25^th International Conference on Population Development (ICPD25) commitments in fulfilling Goal 5 of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 5 calls upon countries to achieve gender equality and women empowerment by 2030.

As a result, in 2019 Djibouti created the Parliamentary Group of Population and Development (PGPD) – an eight-member formation of four men and an equal number of women MPs – to which Omar Mohamed is the president.

Its objective is to contribute to the promotion and protection of the fundamental rights of populations; promote access to education, health, family planning and to encourage the full implementation of the programme of action of the ICPD.

In addition, the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), together with National Assembly of Djibouti and the PGPD, organised Inter-regional Parliamentarians Meeting from Feb. 23 – 24. to follow up ICPD25 in Djibouti.

“It was an opportunity for parliamentarians to interact and cooperate with their colleagues on issues related to the engagement of the Nairobi Summit,” he said. They discussed family planning and violence against women and girls and developed a roadmap for implementing ICPD25 commitments.

Moreover, the Government of Djibouti has adopted, signed and ratified the following international instruments that contribute to the eradication of FGM.  These include:

•  The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
•  The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women; and,
• The Additional Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women (Maputo Protocol).
• To harmonise international commitments on ICPD the Government of Djibouti developed a five-year National Strategy for the Abandonment of FGM.

“The main objective of this strategy was to promote the total abandonment of FGM by respecting physical integrity and promoting the health of women and girls,” said Omar Mohamed.

UNFPA has also supported several ICPD activities in Djibouti, including updating the Sexual and Reproductive Health Essential Package Protocol to include FGM and established a mobile anti-FGM brigade.

The government also has strengthened its domestic law to protect women and prohibit any physical violation.

Omar Mohamed noted that considering that ICPD issues are part of the SDGs which are interlinked, there is a great commitment to meet the targets by 2030.

However, socio-economic challenges that slow down progress which include massive unemployment, inequality and the rise of extremism remain a stumbling block.

“To counter all the challenges that arise, economic and institutional reforms are needed to support and respect the SDGs and the commitments made within the framework of the ICPD process,” he said.

The government has produced a national strategy to respond to the socio-economic challenges that hinder the country’s progress towards achieving the SDGs.   

Nomcebo Mkhaliphi posing with girls from the Kwaluseni Infantry Primary School in Eswatini. Courtesy: Nomcebo Mkhaliphi

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE , Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

When 14-year-old Nomcebo Mkhaliphi first noticed the blood discharged from her vagina, she was shocked. Confused, she turned to her older sisters for advice.

“My sisters told me that they were experiencing the same every month and that they used fabric, toilet paper and newspapers as sanitary wear,” recalls the now 45-year-old Mkhaliphi. She had to follow suit and use these materials because she had no money to buy sanitary pads.

Mkhaliphi and her four siblings were single-handedly raised by their father in a poor household in rural Makhonza, south of Eswatini. Mkhaliphi’s parents had separated when she was nine, so conversations about menstruation were never had, both at home and school. 

Recounting her experience with periods invokes sad emotions for Mkhaliphi. She had three significant moments at school where her periods put her at the centre of gossip, bullying and humiliation.

At some point, she stained her tunic, followed by other incidents where a toilet paper and a newspaper she wore in the place of a sanitary pad fell to the ground after getting soaked, right in front of other learners.

“These incidents lowered my self-esteem because other students used my experience to bully me,” says the mother of two boys and a girl.

Instead of dropping out of school like other girls in a similar situation, Mkhaliphi persevered until she completed her high school education. Today, she volunteers her time to teach young girls and boys at schools and communities about menstruation, particularly the stigma associated with periods. She includes boys so that they stop seeing periods as a laughing matter but a natural occurrence for their female peers.

“There’s a lot of stigma associated with menstruation. When a woman is on her periods, she is said to be in ‘cleansing’ something that portrays her as dirty. That’s why in other families a menstruating woman is not allowed to cook, while in some churches they’re not allowed to come closer to the pastor,” Mkhaliphi tells IPS, adding that some churches order women to sit at the back and not participate in the service.

What’s worse, it’s taboo to talk about menstruation because in the Swati culture it has always been portrayed as a secret. This small landlocked southern African nation is the continent’s last monarchy, with a population of just under 1.4 million.

Through her talks, Mkhaliphi is using her story to end the stigma associated with periods and building confidence among girls by giving them the right information about their sexual reproductive health. She also gives talks to primary school children because, she says, it is important to talk to them while they are young.

“Girls open up to me about their own sad stories once they hear about my experience,” she says.

One such girl is Nomthandazo* (14) from a public school in Eswatini’s industrial town, Matsapha, who said she used to abscond from school when on her period because one day the newspaper she was wearing fell off and she was became the target for ridicule at school for a long time.

With no money to buy pads, she pretended to be going to school and would hide from her parents for about a week until her period was over.

“I now use rags. They take long to dry but they’re better than newspapers,” she tells IPS.

Some parents fail to have a conversation with their children about periods. For instance, Temphilo* from rural Sihhoye told her stepmother as soon as she saw blood, thinking that there was something wrong with her. Indeed, there was, according to her stepmother, who beat her up and accused her of having sex.

“I bled for almost a month and she didn’t even take me to hospital because she felt I brought it on myself,” Temphilo tells IPS. After that first irregular period, her periods followed the regular course of lasting 4 to 5 days.

But it took Mkhaliphi to assure her that menstruation is a natural thing that occurs to every woman and she should not be ashamed of herself because of it. So far, Mkhaliphi has reached over 3,000 girls since she started this initiative after she was retrenched from her work as a legal secretary in 2016.

“I get invited to many places where teachers and community leaders ask me to speak to learners and the youth in communities,” she says. “But it’s difficult to reach out to everyone because of lack of financial resources.”

Mkhaliphi has taken the conversation to Twitter, @nomcebo_mkhali where she now raises awareness. Twitter has exposed her to individual donors who contribute pads and a bit of money to support the girls. Given the number of places to visit and girls from poor backgrounds, she needs more assistance.

#Girls deserve #Menstruation dignity #StopTheStigma #Pads @umbrios @YonWumman @Passie_Kracht @TJVRD @RaeUK @Anyechka pic.twitter.com/x2XMou14KJ

— Nomcebo Mkhaliphi (@nomcebo_mkhali) 6 December 2019

“It’s sad that most girls are still using unsafe materials which are not only inadequate for protection but can also lead to diseases,” she says.

The 2017 Eswatini Annual Education Census recorded that 220 girls absconded from school at primary level although the education was free. Reasons were not given for the dropouts but Mkhaliphi says it could partly be lack of sanitary wear.   

“Building the girl’s confidence is not good enough if they won’t have access to the things that will preserve their dignity when they’re menstruating,” says Mkhaliphi.

Chairperson of the Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee in the House of Assembly, Mduduzi Dlamini, concurs with Mkhaliphi.

“It doesn’t make sense that sanitary wear is not provided for free both at school and at community centres,” says Dlamini.

A participant at the recent 25th International Conference on Population Development (ICPD25) in Nairobi, Kenya, he promised that the provision of free sanitary wear to girls was one of the issues that he would push for discussion in parliament.

“What I learnt from the conference is that when girls lack toiletries, like pads, they become vulnerable to sugar daddies who buy them these things,” Dlamini tells IPS. “Some girls end up getting infected with HIV by sugar daddies all because they didn’t have access to pads. Government needs to address this issue.”   

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) “women are disproportionally affected by HIV” in Eswatini – 120,000 of the 190,000 adults living with HIV are women. In addition, “new HIV infections among young women aged 15–24 years were more than quadruple those among young men: 2400 new infections among young women, compared to fewer than 500 among young men”.

So far, Kenya and Botswana are the only African governments on track to offer free sanitary wear by law. 

*Names withheld to protect their identity.

UNFPA-supported midwives ensured that this young woman gave birth safely in Bor Hospital, South Sudan. © UNFPA South Sudan

By Julitta Onabanjo
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Nov 12 2019 (IPS)

This is a special year for all rights-based health advocates, as we celebrate 25 years of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

At the ICPD in Cairo in 1994, for the first time world leaders from 179 member states committed to the principles that underpin today’s Sustainable Development Goals: non-discrimination and universality; the centrality of health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights; education; women’s empowerment and gender equality; and the collective need to ensure environmental sustainability.

In the past 25 years, noteworthy progress has been made towards the realization of universal sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in most parts of the world, including in East and Southern Africa.

The East and Southern Africa region is home to more than 600 million people, with a third of its population between 10 to 24 years of age.

In the East and Southern Africa region:

• Today, one in three women are using a modern family planning method, compared to less than one in ten in 1994. Higher use of modern family planning methods has enabled women to exercise their right to determine the timing and number of their children;
• A woman’s chance of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth has declined from a 1-in-20 risk during her lifetime to a 1-in-55 risk;
• Many countries have criminalized gender-based violence (GBV), and have outlawed child marriage and female genital mutilation;
• New HIV infections have declined by 20 per cent, while AIDS-related deaths have decreased by 44 per cent since 2010.

Considering the current pace of progress, it could be concluded that the East and Southern Africa region is unlikely to achieve universal access to SRHR and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.


Despite good progress, the promise of the ICPD remains to be fulfilled for millions of people in the East and Southern Africa region. One in five women do not have their family planning needs met.

Lack of contraceptive choices is producing sub-optimal health and fertility benefits. Although care during pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery has improved, the quality and cost of these services remain a challenge.

More women appear to be dying due to poor quality care than lack of access to care. One in three girls are being married by age 18, and almost one in six young women aged 20 to 24 years continues to experience gender-based violence.

Legal systems still have difficulty convicting perpetrators of gender-based violence. Ninety-eight per cent of all new HIV infections are now occurring in just 15 countries, the majority of them in East and Southern Africa. These challenges are exacerbated in conflict, humanitarian and emergency settings.

Considering the current pace of progress, it could be concluded that the East and Southern Africa region is unlikely to achieve universal access to SRHR and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.

In this context, the ICPD25 Nairobi Summit provides a great opportunity to recommit ourselves to redoubling our efforts to accelerate progress towards universal SRHR, and women’s empowerment and gender equality – the unfinished agendas of the ICPD.

The good news is that, along with the steady but noteworthy progress towards SRHR for all, leaving no one behind, the momentum around Universal Health Coverage is also growing in the East and Southern Africa region.

The Political Declaration of the High-Level Meeting on UHC by Heads of State and Government and representatives of States and Governments will further strengthen this momentum.

Through the high-level declaration, world leaders have committed to progressively achieve Universal Health Coverage, achieve universal access to SRHR, and stop the rise and reverse the trend of catastrophic out-of-pocket health expenditure by providing measures to ensure financial risk protection and eliminate impoverishment due to health-related expenses, by 2030.

To generate resources for Universal Health Coverage, many countries are initiating innovative financing arrangements (e.g. pool health financing and pre-payment mechanisms), and to ensure that the cost of using health services does not put people at risk of financial harm, many countries are strengthening their financial protection mechanisms.

However, the current and, for many, proposed minimum essential UHC benefit packages, financing and financial protection mechanisms do not include six out of the nine recommended essential SRH bundles of services (see Box 2, 4-9). In many countries, even if the remaining three essential SRHR bundles of services are part of UHC benefit packages, they are not fully covered under UHC financing and financial protection mechanisms.

The current momentum around UHC in the region should become a powerful framework for accelerating progress towards universal SRHR:

• When comprehensive SRHR services are progressively integrated into the UHC benefit packages, and financing and financial protection arrangements ensure that the use of SRHR services does not expose the user to financial hardship;
• When UHC policies and programmes prioritize integrated, people-centered delivery of primary promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health care, including SRHR, by following a life-course approach;
• When UHC policies and programmes ensure that ‘no one is left behind’, with an endeavour to get essential health and SRHR services to those left furthest behind first, founded on the dignity of the human person and reflecting the principles of equality and non-discrimination;
• When the opportunities and risks associated with existing/proposed UHC financing, delivery and financial protection arrangements are better understood and evidence-based measures implemented to minimize undesirable outcomes, including development of evidence-driven country-specific policies on the role of the private sector in attaining universal SRHR and UHC;
• When UHC policies and programmes strengthen the capacity of national governments to exercise strategic leadership and coordination, focusing on intra as well as inter-sectoral coordination and integrated, people-centered delivery; as well as strengthen the capacity of local authorities, and encourage them to effectively engage with their respective communities and stakeholders to accelerate progress towards universal SRHR and UHC.

What will you march for? I march for the full, effective and accelerated implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action – an agenda still to be fully realized – an agenda that includes at its core universal SRHR.

Achieving this target would require us to take advantage of the momentum of Universal Health Coverage. SRHR and UHC will need to become more entwined. Simply put – there can be no UHC without universal SRHR and vice versa. Together, let’s march for the universal goal of UHC and SRHR for all, with no exceptions!

Excerpt:

An eight-month-old boy is examined by a doctor at Amana Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. While women are increasingly using contraceptives to plan their families, there are still too many who lack access to critical reproductive health services. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Aug 10 2019 (IPS)

Khadija Zuberi, 23, from Ruaha Mbuyuni village in Tanzania’s central highlands, is a single mother to her four-year-old son, Hashim.

It has been a financial struggle for Zuberi—who has completed high school, but has no further qualifications—to raise her son. While she is still in a relationship with Hashim’s father and he reportedly supports them, he doesn’t live in Ruaha Mbuyuni village, located in Iringa.

Zuberi has worked all sorts of jobs to provide for her son. She remembers her first job as a helper at a local food outlet. She was paid the equivalent of a dollar a day for a job that started at 5am and ended 14 hours later.

“You find yourself working so hard and when you get paid you can’t even meet your basics needs,” she told IPS.

Last March, Zuberi became a recipient of a project called Malkia wetu, Swahili for ‘Our Queens’. It is a programme run by Kilimo Kan, a local agribusiness that supports the development of smallholder farmers in Iringa. Malkia wetu specifically targets young women between the ages of 14 and 24 from Ruaha Mbuyuni village. After training the young women, they are each allocated a piece of land and agricultural inputs with the agreement that the produce will be sold back to Malkia wetu.

“The programme facilitates young women to use agribusiness to avoid risky livelihood options such as early marriage and pregnancy or prostitution and instead become financially literate, entrepreneurial leaders generating income from farming,” the company says on a Facebook post.

Now Zuberi runs her own small food business, selling soup to villagers in the morning and evening and also farming tomotoes. 

Many don’t have access to critical reproductive health services

Young women like Zuberi aren’t an exception here. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one in four Tanzanian adolescents aged 15-19 have already begun having children and the fertility rate is five children for every women in a country of just over 57 million people.

While women are increasingly using contraceptives to plan their families, UNFPA states “there are still too many who lack agency, education, and access to critical reproductive health services. The unmet need for family planning for married women (aged 15 to 49) stands at 32 percent”.  

A Department for International Development (DFID) study titled “Barriers to Women’s Economic Inclusion in Tanzania” lists these barriers as time poverty (because women spend significant time on household chores); lack of education; and even reproductive health pressures.

While Tanzania remains one of the African nations to experience sustained economic growth, according to USAID this is limited by a high population growth: “High population growth and low productivity in labour-intensive sectors like agriculture, which employs 75 percent of the population, limit broad-based economic growth. ”

African and Asian Parliamentarians met in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from Aug. 5 to 8 to address what needs to be done ahead of the summit on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25).

The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25

With less than 100 days to go before the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25), African and Asian Parliamentarians met in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from Aug. 5 to 8 to address what needs to be done ahead of the November summit.

• ICPD25 refers to a 1994 meeting in Cairo, Egypt, where world governments adopted a plan of action, calling for women’s reproductive health and rights to take centre stage in national and global development efforts.
• Titled the “African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development for ICPD+25”, the Tanzania meeting this week aimed to provide a platform for deepening regional parliamentarians’ understanding of the significance of UNFPA’s work and equipping parliamentarians with knowledge and skills to take concrete measures to advance the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action and Sustainable Development Goals.
• The Programme of Action recognises “that reproductive health and rights, as well as women’s empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of population and development programmes,” according to UNFPA. The meeting was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA). While parliamentarians recognised that progress had been made since Cairo, considerable gaps remain within certain countries.

Tanzania’s Speaker of parliament, Job Ndugai, said that his country was committed to the ICPD Programme of Action. He also urged Tanzanians to limit the size of their families relation to their economic status so that parents could provide their children with the basic necessities.

“We should look at this on a family level. You and your family…the children that you are [having] do they reflect your financial status? The important thing here is the amount of people we have should relate with our economic [status],’’ said Ndugai.

Sinichi Goto, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Tanzania, said African countries were making efforts to achieve the SDG’s. While Asia currently has more than half of the world’s population, Africa is estimated to account for more than 90 percent of the increase in the global population between 2020-2100.

Empowering women means empowering communities

Nenita Dalde, from the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation said that African and Asian governments have to ensure that women benefitted equally and participate directly in development programmes and projects.

The gains of this would be far-reaching. “When you empower women you heighten employee morale and it inspires them to give back,” she told IPS.

Helen Kuyembeh, a former member of parliament from Sierra Leone told IPS that communities experienced positive impacts when women are empowered.

“The benefits start in the household when [a woman’s] income increases,” she said, explaining that it will impact what the family ate, their health and the children’s education.

She added that when women were empowered to start they are own businesses they usually would employ other women and provide inspiration to them.

She has seen this first hand.

“When I was an MP, I created programmes to support women in my village to become more self-sufficient and this programme has uplifted a lot of women from my village and now they are not lonely and unhappy,” Kuyembeh said.

Zuberi, is more certainly a case study for this.

She earned 450 dollars from selling her first harvest of tomatoes, and makes over 300 dollars a month in a country where the mean monthly income for men is 117 dollars a month and 71 dollars a month for women, according to the DFID study. Women’s salaries are on average 63 percent lower than those paid men here, according to USAID.

But not Zuberi. With the money she earns she can pay her own rent and is able to support her son.