Anti-Nairobi: A Statement against the Nairobi Statement

Science does not need to start with science. It can start with philosophy. This work follows the great works of the past, namely Julius Caesars Anti-Cato and especially Friedrich Engels Anti-Dühring. It is built upon the threefold thesis - antithesis - synthesis approach of Hegelian dialectics. This Statement considers the Nairobi Statement a thesis and brings forth a critique of its flaws and incompleteness, thus becoming its antithesis.

Position statement.

Center for Outpatient Gynecology, Brno, Czech Republic; Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

This Statement is based on a critical analysis of the Nairobi Statement.

The Nairobi Statement (2019) reaffirms the Cairo Summits Programme of Action (1994), which emphasized individual human beings while excluding population from the discourse, and by extension recommended a wide range of sexual and reproductive health and rights instead of specific family planning endeavors. Cairos failure is largely visible through the increase in world population from 5.6 billion in 1994 to 7.8 billion in 2019 (also projected to grow through the end of the century). The Nairobi Statements flaw is that it ignores the problem of overpopulation and its vast environmental and other implications. However, the most significant missed opportunities are A) lack of acknowledgment that there cannot be sustainable development without sustainable population and B) non-existent calls for small families worldwide, which helps combat population momentum and thus end and reverse population growth.

Anti-Nairobi goes against the current leading paradigm on “sustainable” development as expressed in the Nairobi Statement. While acknowledging the Statements triple zero goals, it suggests an additional set of goals. Finally, in the spirit of Hegelian dialectics, it implicitly awaits a synthesis to bridge both the thesis and its antithesis.