Civic body to assist ‘unmet needs’ of Arab youth

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

A civic organisation in Dubai has plans of endeavouring on activities for the furtherance of the mission work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in improving issues and concerns impacting the lives of children, particularly those of girls, in the Arab World.

“We are looking forward to having a fundraising dinner as one of our first projects,” said Dubai Rotary Club of Jumeirah president Dr Sawsan Al Madhi.

“We will support their (UNFPA) efforts in our next Rotary year to make sure we plan ahead properly,” she continued.

Al Madhi was interviewed after UNFPA-Senior Regional Resource Mobilisation and Partnerships advisor Sherin SaadAllah presented to the club officers, members and guests the “ICPD@25: Unfinished Business” during the weekly dinner held in a hotel in Jumeirah.

“ICPD@25” refers to the “programme of action” 179 governments 25 years back or in 1994 decided to work on from the UN-organised International Conference on Population and Development, particularly to curb the growing number of unmet needs of the youth all over the world, primarily as a consequence of unwanted and early pregnancies.

Representatives of the 179 countries who assembled from Sept.5 to 13 in Cairo, Egypt—with the “ICPD” otherwise labelled as the “1994 Cairo Conference”—specifically vowing to assist the youth not to become willing or unwilling victims of the rising cases of sexually transmitted diseases, and bloating maternal and infant/child deaths. They promised as well to have boys and men become responsible husbands and fathers and not only pass the burden of child-rearing to their wives who had been observed and reported to be so young to become wives and mothers.

UNFPA’s SaadAllah focused her presentation on the state of the “ICPD@25 in the Arab World” for relevance purposes with cases coming from the 22 countries comprising the region.

Among the member-states of the Arab World are the UAE, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Comoros Islands, Iraq and Djibouti.

Recent UN data showed the region is home to 192 million children and young adults or 121 million children and 71 million adolescents to early 20s.

SaadAllah pointed out that the ICPD’s agenda is “marked by the possibility of making informed and safe choices about reproductive health, enhancing maternal health, equity and justice.”