Word: cairo
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Changing public attitudes help explain why the U.N. meeting in Cairo, formally known as the International Conference on Population and Development, ended in surprising peace and harmony, even though it had opened amid fierce disputes about abortion and threats of violence by Islamic fundamentalists. For once the U.N. was truly united: no country voted against the final draft of a 113-page plan calling on governments to commit $17 billion annually by the year 2000 to the cause of curbing population growth...
...Earth Summit," said a U.S. delegate, referring to the 1992 Rio conference on environment and development, which was marred by deep distrust and finger pointing among participating nations. "That was just two years ago, and you couldn't even talk about population." In contrast, the unexpected consensus in Cairo left delegates bubbling about a "watershed in world history." Timothy Wirth, the U.S. Undersecretary of State for global affairs, who earned high praise for helping guide the initially fractious group toward agreement, called the consensus a rare victory for the U.N. "It's hard enough to get 180 members...
Mahran knows that his own country, which crowds 62 million people into a narrow strip of arable land the size of the Netherlands, provides a sobering reality check for the idealistic premises of the Cairo accord. Egypt imports 70% of its food, yet each year it loses thousands of acres of farmland to urban sprawl and overuse. The nation will somehow have to find food, water and jobs for an additional 37 million people over the next 30 years...
...useful, therefore, to see how the methods employed to slow growth in Egypt match up with the ones outlined in the new U.N. plan. In Sinnuris officials try to link family-planning services to health care for women and children -- a combination considered vital by the delegates to Cairo. But Mohammed Zakaria, undersecretary for health affairs in Sinnuris, says he must also meet birth-control targets set each year (an approach deemed ineffective in the Cairo plan) and that after a second child, families must pay steep fees for hospital delivery (a disincentive generally frowned on as coercive). In general...
...comfort from the plight of other countries, and together they resolved to deal with the mutual problem. As this delegate saw it, "Muslim nations said to other Muslim nations, 'It's O.K. to support family planning,' as did Catholic nations to other Catholic nations." Thus, the consensus achieved in Cairo may allow the world community to move beyond divisive debates about abortion and contraception in dealing with the population juggernaut. The accord may signal a new, more mature approach to confronting a potential global disaster...