Inter Press Service examines the possibility of another U.N. conference on development and population within the next five years. Despite progress made since the 1994 conference on population and development (ICPD), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon recently noted more than 200 million women cannot access safe and effective contraception, and “too many women resort to unsafe abortions because they lack access to family planning,” according to the news service.

“The proposal for a major population conference also comes at a time when the United Nations is giving high priority to reaching its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015,” which are “closely inter-related to several population related issues, including maternal mortality, poverty reduction and gender empowerment,” IPS writes.

“A global conference will enable us to assess what progress has been made towards achieving ICPD goals [not all will have been achieved] and MDGs,” Jyoti Shankar Singh, permanent observer to the U.N. for Partners in Population and Development, said. Such a conference would “enable us to see what challenges and opportunities have come up and what the governments, non-governmental organisations and the international community should be doing in future,” he said. The article includes comments from other experts (Deen, 10/19).