The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is a UN organization. The work of the UNFPA involves promotion of the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. This is done through major national and demographic surveys and with population censuses. The data generated are used to create programmes to reduce poverty and address issues concerning the rights of particular minority population groups. One of their aims is to ensure that "every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect". Their work involves the improvement of reproductive health; including creation of national strategies and protocols, and providing supplies and services to these minority groups, as well as internal migrants and refugees, the elderly and the handicapped. The organization has recently been known for its worldwide campaign against obstetric fistula and female genital mutilation.
The UNFPA supports programs in more than 150 countries, territories and areas spread across four geographic regions: Arab States and Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Around three quarters of the staff work in the field. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and part of its Executive Committee.
Read more about United Nations Population Fund: Origins, Role, Leadership, Goodwill Ambassadors, Areas of Work, Programme of Action, Approach To Health Care, UNFPA Programmes, Relations With The US Government, Other UN Population Agencies and Entities
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, population and/or fund:
“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)