The China Population and Development Country Report was
published on Tuesday at the on-going International Forum on
Population and Development held in Wuhan, capital of central
China's Hubei Province.
The report has nine parts, including population dynamics and
development strategy; reproductive health and family planning;
poverty alleviation and development; HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment
and care; adolescent sexual and reproductive health; reduction of
maternal and infant morality; empowerment of women and gender
issues; role of non-governmental organizations; and official
development assistance and global development partnership.
Population development strategy
Owing to its family planning policy starting from the 1970s,
China has lowered its fertility rate to the level of developed
countries, said the report.
By reducing fertility, China has successfully brought excessive
population growth under control.
The birth rate and natural increase rate declined from 21.06 per
thousand and 14.39 per thousand in 1990 to 12.41 per thousand and
6.01 per thousand in 2003. The total fertility rate remains below a
replacement level and the contraceptive prevalence rate keeps
around 83 percent, the report said.
In China, population and development planning have grown in
importance as an integral component of national socioeconomic
development.
At the annual summit on population, resources and environment
convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
in 2004, population and development strategy research and planning
were given top priority in the field of population and family
planning.
Through the legislation of the Population and Family Planning
Law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, 2002, China enhanced the
authority and authenticity of population planning and announced a
human-oriented, rights-based approach.
In 2003, the State Family Planning Commission was renamed
National Population and Family Planning Commission, taking on a new
responsibility of research on population and development
strategy.
According to the report, a state-level research of population
and development strategy is going on to promote balanced
development among human beings, society, economy, resources, and
the environment in a sustainable way.
Reproductive health
Reproductive health promotion has been highlighted it China's
family planning program since its introduction following the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in
Cairo a decade ago.
China has made great efforts to further international exchanges
and cooperation to improve China's RH/FP (reproductive
health/family planning) program, and promote the development of
global population program, according to the report.
According to the Cairo Conference, reproductive health is the
commitment to meeting the broad reproductive health needs of both
men and women throughout the life cycle. Key areas include safe
delivery, prenatal and postnatal care, infertility treatment and
family planning.
The past decade has witnessed China's achievement in the RH/FP
program promotion.
China and United Nations Population Fund have jointly launched a
RH/FP project in protecting civil rights, improving women's
reproductive health, caring for adolescents' needs for reproductive
health, promoting gender equality, preventing HIV/AIDS and reducing
maternal and child mortality.
Collaboration with WHO has helped China improve its family
planning research network and the level of science and technology.
It also advanced the reproductive health promotion program
featuring healthy baby promotion.
China became in November 1997 a member of Partners in Population
and Development (PPD) -- the only alliance of developing countries
in the population field, and was elected in June 2002 as chair of
the executive committee of PPD.
By sending senior officials to attend the annual meetings of
PPD, China shares experiences and explores appropriate ways for
population and RH/FP with other developing countries.
China has trained nearly 1,000 RH/FP managers and service
providers for other developing countries and also sent people to
those countries for training. The RH/FP quality of care project
supported by the Ford Foundation has expanded from 11 counties at
the beginning to present 827 counties, or one-third of the
country's total.
But reproductive health for disadvantaged group, including
women, impoverished people and migrant populations has remained a
pressing issue in China. According to the report, China will
strengthen international exchange to learn the experience of other
countries.
China will pay special attention to the poverty-stricken central
and western regions and improve their awareness and capability so
as to raise the overall level of China's RH/FP program, according
to the report.
HIV/AIDS prevention
The Chinese government remarkably increased its budget for
HIV/AIDS prevention and control annually, according to the
report.
The report said in 2001, the central government substantially
increased its budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and control annually
from 15 million yuan (US$1. 81 million) to 100 million yuan
(US$12.09 million). In 2003, this allocation jumped again to 390
million yuan (US$47.16 million). In 2001, 1.25 billion yuan (US$150
million) from national bonds, combined with 1 billion yuan (US$120
million) in matching funds from local governments, were contributed
to the construction of blood banks and equipment purchase in the
central and western parts of China.
The report said the government has created an express path to
expedite the examination and approval of imported anti-retroviral
drugs as well as for relevant pharmaceutical research and
development, and it has granted duty-free clearance for imported
anti-retroviral drugs.
Since mid-1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China has been
increasing dramatically. According to the initial analysis of a
national epidemiological survey conducted in 2003, there are
840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, of whom 80,000 are AIDS
patients.
The number of HIV-infected people in China has ranked the second
in Asia and the fourteenth in the world. In terms of the expected
pattern of HIV transmission and spread of infection, the epidemic
in China is on the verge of wide proliferation from high-risk
populations to the general population.
It is estimated that, without effective measures of prevention
and treatment, the total figure of the HIV/AIDS infected in China
would possibly reach 10 million by 2010. China faces a severe
situation. The report said in 2005, China expects that 100 percent
of middle schools and universities will have incorporated
prevention and control of HIV/AIDS into the curriculum.
People's awareness and knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention
should be significantly improved in both rural and urban areas,
especially among most vulnerable groups. There will be progress in
removing the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS that impedes public
understanding and participation in the solutions to the
epidemic.
The report said work on HIV/AIDS Comprehensive Care and
Treatment Pilots should be done in a down-to-earth way. Currently,
the 127 County Community-based Comprehensive China Cares Pilot
sites basically include larger counties with high levels of
HIV/AIDS infection or great danger of the spread of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic in China. Key areas and even HIV/AIDS prevalence across
the country should be under control through comprehensive
prevention and treatment efforts.
The report said there is a need to strengthen research and
development of anti-retroviral drugs, to strengthen the medical
assistance for HIV/AIDS treatment and care and to strengthen
capacity to provide AIDS patients with free anti-retroviral
drugs.
Reduction of maternal and infant morality
China has identified reduction of maternal and child mortality
rates over the past decades, achieving the goal set by the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)
Program of Action ahead of schedule, according to the report.
The report said that in 2002, monitoring at 116 sites showed
that maternal mortality rate was declined year by year, compared to
64.8 per 100,000 live births in 1994 to 43.2 per 100,000 live
births in 2002.
The under-five mortality rate was also dropped from 49.6 per
thousand in 1994 to 34.9 per thousand in 2002.
These two factors indicate that China has realized the goal set
by the ICPD program of action earlier than it urged that by 2015,
which requires that all countries should make efforts to reduce the
under-five mortality below 45 per thousand.
However, the report pointed out that certain laws and
regulations are not fully observed and enforced in some localities
due to inadequate attention from leading officials.
Another constrain is that funding and medical supports are
insufficient in some poverty-stricken regions and households.
Moreover, regional disparities of the under-five mortality rates
are quite obvious, in which rural areas are higher than urban areas
and inland regions are far ahead of seashore areas.
Poverty alleviation
The past decade saw a sharp decline in number of rural poverty
in China, but its urban poverty became a matter of concern, said
the report.
The report said the number of those living in rural poverty fell
from 80 million people by the end of 1993 to 29 million in 2003,
which represented a decrease from 8.7 percent of rural population
to 3.1 percent.
With ongoing changes in China's economic system, problems of
urban poverty are a matter of concern. In 2003, an estimated number
of 22.48 million urban residents had incomes below the basic
standard of living. The largest proportion of urban poor is women
and children.
The investment of the central government in poverty reduction
work increases annually with the result that all poverty reduction
grants and funds have risen from nearly 9.8 billion yuan (US$1.2
billion) in 1994 to some 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion) or so in
2003. Similarly, local governments have concentrated more funds on
poverty reduction.
Since 1995, over 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) has been
invested in the nine-year compulsory education in poverty-stricken
areas. During the implementation, special attention has been paid
to women and children.
Since the largest part of poor people are in western regions,
the Chinese government adopted a Western Development Strategy in
1998 to stimulate economic growth and poverty reduction in these
regions. Funding priority is given to western regions in such items
as infrastructure, protection of ecological resources and the
environment and tapping of natural resources.
An urban poverty reduction mechanism has been set up to address
the issues of the poverty in China's urban areas. Urban poverty
differs from rural poverty and results primarily from changes in
the structure of China's economy and from resulting pressures on
employment.
Several projects and systems have been initiated in urban areas,
including a re-employment project, basic old age support insurance,
health care insurance, unemployment insurance, on-job injury
insurance for staff and workers, parental health insurance and
minimum income relief for urban residents.
During the period of 1998 to 2003, the central government
allocated 73.1 billion yuan (US$8.8 billion) to ensure the basic
living standard of workers laid off from state-owned enterprises,
enabling 4.4 million job losers to be re-employed.
By the end of 2003, there were 103.73 million people who were
covered by various types of unemployment insurance. Governments at
various levels provided a total of 15.1 billion yuan (US$1.8
billion) to subsidize a basic living standard for those in
need.
(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2004)