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Contact:
John Emmanuel
Thursday, May 15, 2003 - After almost a decade since the staging of the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt,
back in 1994, over one hundred and seventy (170) participating countries around
the world have begun taking stock of what has been achieved via their national
agendas to date. St. Lucia began its introspection on Wednesday, May 14, 2003
with assistance of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The one-day exercise, held at the Indies Conference Centre in Rodney Bay, is the
first in a series of consultations grouping the various stakeholders and sought
to examine the existing data on population and development issues gathered over
the years. Addressing participants, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry
of Social Transformation Ezra Jn. Baptiste noted that, “the area of population
and development is of concern to all of us because we must recognize and admit
that there is a seamless interrelationship between population and development.”
In other words, said Jn. Bapriste, “population affects development and
development affects population. Therefore the question we need to ask and answer
is to what extent have population factors and issues been incorporated into the
planning process.” Data collected over the ten year period will assist the UNFPA
in bettering tailoring its assistance to countries willing to implement the plan
of action developed at the Cairo Conference. Such assistance could come not only
in the form of technical but financial aid as well.
UNFPA Deputy Representative who serves as consultant and facilitator to the
exercise Casper Peek said “the questions we will be looking at for example are
those of migration. How many people leave the country, how many enter. Therefore
we start asking the questions, what happens when people leave, skilled people at
that, like nurses, teachers etc. Does that mean that in five years time you have
no nurses to provide medical services, no teachers to teach or instead of thirty
students in a classroom you many be forced to have forth and fifty?” Peek
explained that answers to such questions must be provided by countries if there
are to seriously tackle population and development issues in years to come.
He went on, “we are also asking, if the returning migrants come back as has been
the trend in many other countries of the region, persons who are now in their
sixties who may have left the country thirty years ago, what does that mean in
terms of the social services needed in the country to care for such ones. The
issue of large populations of seniors is posing serious challenges to many
developed countries right now and small developing states will soon face the
vary same issue. Therefore now is the time to put procedures in place to address
what we see as a major and explosive issue, one that will prove to be costly to
small state in the long run.”
Government officials say they view the data collection and comparison exercise
as one of the strategies in the pursuit of a clearer vision for social
transformation on the island.
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