UNFPA Mission Statement

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in;

• using population data for policies and programmes to achieve sustainable development;
• ensuring that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and every young person is free of HIV/AIDS;
• ensuring that every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNFPA offers assistance to developing countries and countries with economies in transition, at their request. It is the world's largest international source of population assistance and channels about a quarter of all population assistance from donor nations to developing countries. Since it began operations in 1969, the Fund has provided some US$ 5 billion in assistance. Ms. Thoraya Obaid is UNFPA's Executive Director and holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The UNFPA Mandate is:

1. To assist developing countries in providing quality Reproductive Health and Family Planning services on the basis of individual choice, and in formulating population policies that support sustainable development.
2. To advance the strategy endorsed by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and reviewed by a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 (ICPD+5) . The strategy focuses on meeting the needs of individual women and men rather than achieving demographic targets. Key to this approach is empowering women and providing them with more choices through expanded access to education, health services and employment opportunities.
3. To promote cooperation and coordination among United Nations organizations, bilateral agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector in addressing issues of population and development, reproductive health, gender equality and women's empowerment.

Reaching the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action will be critical for reaching the Millennium Development Goals -global targets set by world leaders in 2000 and agreed upon in the United Nations Millennium Declaration . The declaration focuses on making the right to development a reality for everyone. Progress is based on sustainable economic growth, which must focus on the poor, with human rights at the centre. The Declaration calls for halving the number of people who live on less than one dollar a day, by the year 2015. This effort also involves finding solutions to hunger, malnutrition and disease, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, guaranteeing a basic education for everyone, and supporting the Agenda 21 principles of sustainable development.

Back to top