There is still a long way to go before the recommendations of the International Conferenceon Population and Development (ICPD)in Cairo 1994 are known, understood and acted upon primarily by government, international agencies and donor organisations in Asia and the Pacific.This was one of the main conclusions of a regional research project Changes in Population Policies and Programmes Post-Cairo, co-ordinated by ARROW in 1996,covering China,Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. The project was initiated in an effort to understand more deeply the extent to which the principles and specific recommendations of the ICPD Programme of Action, particularly in terms of reproductive rights and reproductive health,were understood,accepted and concretely addressed in population,family plannin gand health policies and programme implementation. Country research coordinators and their teams carried out in-depth interviews with key government, NGO and donor agency personnel in positions ranging from policy to field-level. Research co-ordinators were demographers (Thailand and Fiji),public health specialists (China and Malaysia),women’s studies academics (Indonesia) and social scientists (Vietnam, Singapore and Pakistan), most of whom were also affiliated to NGOs concerned with Cairo implementation.
