Population lssue

Population issue nation's main concern

July 11 is World Population Day.
World population reached five billion on July 11, 1987. UNFPA set the day as World Population Day. It proposes various themes for the settlement of the world population issue and encourages the government of each country to hold a variety of events to raise public awareness of the population issue.
The theme for World Population Day 2007 is "Men as Partners in Maternal Health". The issues of maternal health and women's reproductive health are posing a severe problem to individual and family as wall as the social and economic development of each nation.  Over 529,000 women die each year of pregnancy-related diseases.
There has been no change in the death toll in recent years.

At the International Conference on Population and Development(ICPD) held in 1994 the government of each country committed themselves to reducing the world maternal mortality to 75 per cent by giving people universal access by giving people universal access to reproductive health service. Later, the plan was reflected in UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Accordingly, UNFPA has presented a strategy that calls for introducing family planning and providing skill care at the time of birth and quality emergency obstetric service and is recommending each nation to implement it for a long period.
UNFPA stresses that men should discard the view of belittling women, respect their human rights and cooperate with them with the attitude of protecting their health in order to make the strategy pay off.
According to the action program adopted in the ICPD held in Cairo in 194, the DPRK took steps to broaden the scope of service for maternal and infantile health that has been confined to departments of obstetrics and gynecology.

The DPRK government promulgated the Law on sex Equality on July 30, 1946 to emancipate women from social subordination and inequality and get them to enjoy rights equal to men.
It has also systematically improved women's health and welfare by adopting the Law on Public Health, Law on Family, Lay on the Nursing and Upbringing of Children and Lay on Education. It established a system of taking care of women and children at the expense of the state.
In particular, the government set preventive medicine as a priority of health policy.
It enforced the district doctor system to provide a sure guarantee for preventive medical care for women's health.
It is working hard to ensure that the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and other hospitals is local areas promote maternal health.

Meanwhile, it is bolstering up international cooperation.As part of the third-term cooperation plan (1999-2003) with UNGPA, the cooperative assistance for maternal health and family planning was given in Pyongyang and North Phyongan and South Hwanghae Provinces and various medical appliances and medicines were donated to 32 hospitals.

Medical appliances and medicaments were supplied to maternity hospitals and county hospitals and clinics in South Phyongan, Kangwon and South Hamgyong Provinces between 2004 and 2006.
The fourth-term cooperation plan of UNFPA between 2007 and 2009 is to be carried out.
In the period cooperative assistance will be rendered to maternity hospitals, 11 county hospitals and 30 ri clinics in South Hamgyong Provinces and second census will be undertaken in the DPRK in 2008.

Cooperation between the DPRK government and UNFPA will play a positive role in solving the world population issue. To mark this year's World Population Day a seminar on men as partners in maternal health and poster exhibition took place at the Grand People's Study house. They were attended by officials from the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Education, the State Planning Commission and health and research institutions in Pyongyang and Yu Yu, head of the UNFPA Office in the DPRK.
In the seminar lectures and speeches were given under the titles of "UNFPA assistance to the DPRK and policy and goals on men's involvement", "Maternal health situation" and others.