[Challenges facing Caribbean countries 10 years after the International Conference on Population and Development in...

At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that was held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, participants acknowledged that population, economic growth, and sustainable development are concepts that are closely linked, and important strides were made in terms of increased recognition of sexual and reproductive rights. The Programme of Action ratified at that Conference was adopted as a platform for designing national and international policies in the areas of population and development for a period of twenty years. However, in Latin America and the Caribbean all types of obstacles-financial, institutional, and human-still stand in the way of attaining the goals of the Programme of Action, and some governments have established measures that undermine their people's exercise of sexual and reproductive rights. The Caribbean Subregional Meeting to Assess the Implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development 10 Years after its Adoption was held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in November of 2003. At the meeting, which was attended by representatives from 20 Caribbean countries and territories, a call was made for more rational use of available resources and for mobilization of additional funds for developing and implementing population and development programs and policies in the Caribbean. The meeting also saw the approval of the Caribbean Declaration, which lays out the challenges that should serve as the roadmap for taking actions to consolidate the progress achieved so far and come closer to attaining the goals established by the ICPD. In the Declaration, the countries and territories of the Caribbean asserted their commitment to continue legislative reforms at the national level while seeking to enforce these reforms in an effort to ensure implementation of the ICPD's Programme of Action and of the Caribbean Plan of Action for Population and Development that was adopted in 1996 by the Economic Community for Latin America and the Caribbean.