The Cairo accord was signed in the year 1994 when the 175 participating nations had a consensus on controlling the rather spiral growth of the world’s population. During the conference there were discussions on the various reproductive health methods of which some were agreed upon and adopted. Other measures which were discussed include the aspects of the empowerment of women in the society, providing access to family planning methods, to improve on environmental protection and employing measures that would decrease poverty levels. This agreement was centered on the platform of controlling the population growth. This was the main and important aspect of the Cairo accord.
The conference adopted a strategy that focused more on empowering the women and to take keen interest in their needs. Studies show that women are more likely to have fewer children if their education and health concerns are met. Other aspects discussed in the conference included the reduction of rate of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS awareness and gender discrimination. (Collier, 2008) Women in the third world countries have been marginalized to the extent that they cannot participate in leadership roles in their respective countries or neither can they have access to financial assistance from the lending institutions. This has led to the belief that their only security will come from having many children who will in turn take care of them.
In addition to being offered primary education, women need to have more access to modern forms of contraception. Many people including the former president of the United States of America George W. Bush downplayed the support of this accord in the notion that they would be promoting abortion. He termed the use of the words such as ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘reproductive health services’ promoted abortion. On the other hand according to secretary of state Hillary Clinton the President Obama’s administration cited the terms ’reproductive health’ ‘reproductive services ‘and ‘reproductive rights’ have been used in the right context to promote safe methods of abortions.
From an economic perspective the Obama’s administration is doing all it can to reduce the surging global population growth which has made people living in the developing states move to the developed states subsequently depleting the resources. The Bush administration from a moral point of view did well in preventing the vice.
This accord aims to minimize the population growth rate in order to ensure the survival of the human species. This will be done mainly through education and the provisions of reproductive health facilities. Studies have also shown that women who have a higher number of pregnancies have a higher chance of death rate. A staggering 500,000 women die each year globally as a result of pregnancy-related causes.
Being a major contributor to the United Nations the effect of the pullout of the United States of America from this accord leaves a major financial deficit to be met in the U.N population fund that will hinder the implementation of the program. The programs are noble in the sense that the beneficiaries are the people from the developing nations who remain at the mercy of the donor funds for the implementation of the accord. (Handelman, 2009) The citizens of the developing nations have flocked the developed nations in search of jobs since back in their homes they have exhausted all the resources.
References
Collier, P. (2008).The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. New York: Oxford press. Print.
Handelman, H. (2009). The Challenge of Third World Development. London: Pearson education. Print.