Cairo conference.

World leaders continue to meet every decade to tussle with the problem of population. The occasion is the United Nation's International Conference on Population and Development. In September 1994, they met in Cairo. In 1974, they gathered in Bucharest. In 1984, it was Mexico City, They all focussed on reducing world population and related issues such as literacy and employment, particularly for women.

The Cairo meeting produced a final document, although nobody is forced to follow its recommendations. It calls for a massive increase in the availability of reproductive and sexual health care for women, especially in developing countries, a broader choice of contraceptives, and more resources to be devoted to the fight against AIDS.

No one formally signs the document but countries can express concerns about it. The Vatican, for one, had "grave concerns" about some sections of the final UN document. But its partial acceptance of a program that discusses abortion, artificial contraception, and adolescent sex education marked a significant shift from its position at past conferences, when it refused to endorse any part of the plan. One member of the Vatican's delegation said that "in 1994, this conference could not have been held without some mention of abortion."

But, according to Nicholaas Biegman, vice-chairman of the committee that worked out the agreement: "On most of the important issues of family planning, the nations of the world are in agreement on what needs to be done."

The document calls for $17 billion (U.S.) in population funds by the year 2000, with two-thirds of the money coming from developing countries and one-third from traditional foreign aid donors. The UN says another $5 billion is needed for education, $10 billion to $15 billion for water and sanitation and $5 billion to $7 billion for health and nutrition.

Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the UN Population Fund and the conference's Secretary-General, said the Cairo paper takes global family planning into the 21st century. He says it will give women around the world the "power of decision ... (with) the potential to change the world."

Dr. Sadik added that governments are more committed to reproductive health and population issues now than they were at either the Mexico City or Bucharest conferences.

Still, many delegations and non-government organizations from developing countries, were disappointed with the conference.

One New Delhi representative described it as "a complete sidelining of the main issues."

"Abortion and sex are not everything," argued Kalpana Mehta of the New Delhi-based women's group Saheli. "It's development. It's health. It's sharing the world's resources."

Razia Ismail, president of YWCA international, said she feared resources committed at the conference would be funnelled into contraceptive programs rather than wider development concerns. She said the conference also paid little attention to the issue of curtailing consumption rather than just curtailing population.

"It is not the poor who are primarily swallowing up the resources and poisoning the Earth," she said.

The need of migrants for family reunification was another issue that Patrick

Taran, secretary for migration at the World Council of Churches, said was not dealt with adequately. "If family is the basis for society, as this conference says it is," he said, "then migrants who are legally established have a right to be reunited with at least their immediate family members."