UN: Iran and Vietnam win 1999 United Nations population
award
6 April 1999 NEW YORK (UNFPA) -- Dr. Seyed Alireza Marandi, former Minister
of Health and Medical Education of Iran, and the Vietnam National Committee
for Population and Family Planning will share the 1999 United Nations Population
Award.
The 1999 winners were announced today by the Chairman of the Award Committee,
Ambassador Jose Luis Barbosa Leao Monteiro of Cape Verde. Each winner will
receive a diploma, a gold medal and an equal share of the monetary prize
of $25,000.
The Award is presented annually by the Committee of the United Nations
Population Award to individuals and institutions which have made outstanding
contributions to increasing the awareness of population problems and to
their solutions.
Dr. Marandi was nominated for his almost single-handed change of Iranian
population policy. Iran had a high rate of infant and maternal mortality,
as well as high rates of fertility and population growth. As Deputy Minister
of Health (1983) and then Minister of Health (1985) Dr. Marandi promoted
primary health centres, extending programmes against polio, measles, diarrhoeal
and respiratory diseases. He championed reproductive health activities,
encouraging breastfeeding, longer child spacing and raising the age of
first birth. He convinced the government that family planning was not in
conflict with Islamic teaching and that it had great value for individual
and national health. Infant, child and maternal mortality have all declined
in Iran, contraceptive use has risen and the birth rate has fallen.
The winner in the institutional category was the Vietnam National Committee
for Population and Family Planning (NCFP). The committee was set up in
1984 as an umbrella organization to monitor and coordinate all activities
in the population and family planning sector. The NCFP also formulates
population policy and is partially responsible for the drafting of legal,
regulatory and other population and family planning related protocols and
standards. Infant mortality rates in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
have plummeted in recent years, as have fertility rates. The NCFP has been
recognized as playing an important role in Vietnam's rapid fertility decline.
The two winners will receive their awards at a ceremony to be held on
9 June at the United Nations. The Committee of the United Nations Population
Award is made up of representatives of United Nations Member States elected
by the Economic and Social Council for a term of three years.
The current members are Burundi, Cape Verde, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala,
Iran, Lesotho, Netherlands, Romania and Thailand. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), Dr. Nafis Sadik, serve as ex-officio members. In addition, the
Committee has five eminent individuals as honorary members who serve in
an advisory capacity for a renewable term of three years.
There were 33 nominations for the 1999 award, including 18 individuals
and 15 institutions. Nominations can be made by: Member States; intergovernmental
organizations engaged in population-related activities; population-related
non-governmental organizations having consultative status with the United
Nations; university professors of population or population-related studies;
heads of population-related institutions; and past laureates.
CONTACT: Alex Marshall, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Tel:
+1 212 297-5020 Corrie Shanahan Tel: +1 212 297-5023
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