The Director-General of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura paid an official visit to Russia from July 31 to August 2, 2000.

In Moscow he was received by President Vladimir Putin, had talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and signed a protocol to the agreement on the establishment and functioning of a UNESCO Bureau in Moscow. The Bureau will continue help to develop and restore Russia’s principal cultural institutions, such as the Bolshoi Theatre, the Hermitage and the Russian State Library.

The Director-General of UNESCO also took part in an opening ceremony of a UNESCO Information Center in the State Foreign Literature Library in Moscow. This is a kind of cultural and educational centre of world standards that is visited by more than 1,500 book lovers daily. Library Director Ekaterina Genieva presented Koichiro Matsuura with a cut-glass Green Apple as a symbol of life and prosperity.

The Director-General then met with the chief editors of leading Russian mass media chiefs at the ITAR-TASS News Agency, and with members of the intellectual community involved in the UNESCO projects. Talking about his priorities as the new UNESCO Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura said that he wanted all children of the world to be able to read, because education is one of UNESCO’s priorities. About a billion people in the world cannot read today, and a hundred million children do not go to schools, he said.

The Director-General shared his impression of his visit with the readers of UN in Russia.

It was very fruitful. We had planned a lot of things and I am very glad that we managed to fulfill our schedule. We had very fruitful talks with President Vladimir Putin and Russian authorities, who stressed that partnership in the fields of education and culture strengthens political partnership as well.

To remind, during the meeting in the Kremlin the Russian President emphasised that cooperation with UNESCO has special importance and special meaning for Russia because of the reform going on in Russia and because of the fact that social issues are where Russia gives a top priority in the course of reform.

The General Assembly is the main deliberative forum of the United Nations. It is composed of representatives of all 188 Member States, each of which has one vote. Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new Members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority. Decisions on other questions are reached by a simple majority. These decisions may be adopted without a vote, or with a vote, which may be recorded or non-recorded, or by roll-call.

On 11 June, an Internet on-line conference, World Population Day and Russian Demographic Problems, attended by government officials, scientists, public figures, and journalists was held at the Russian Government Press Centre. As the Internet conference participants noted, Russia at the turn of the century is experiencing a difficult demographic situation caused by a low fertility and high mortality rate. In the words of well-known scientist Andrei Volkov, demographic processes are people’s response to the deteriorating living conditions. The size of the population is diminishing every year on an average of 0.3-0.8 million people. But whereas in past decades life expectancy was falling mainly as a result of the growing spread of cardiovascular diseases and illnesses caused by an unhealthy life-style, the roots of the current low birth rates lie in the unfavourable socio-economic situation.

Alexander Pochinok, the Russian Minister of Labour and Social Development, said that the government’s task is to eliminate the obstacles preventing the resolution of demographic problems.

The importance of the problems discussed is shown by the fact that many questions were received at the press centre. Many readers were interested in forecasts for the demographic situation in the next few decades, and the status of the most impoverished strata of the population, the disabled, and homeless children.

UNFPA, in coordination with the Russian Health Ministry and the World Health Organisation, carried out a humanitarian mission on June 13-17, 2000 to evaluate the reproductive health of the population in the Republic of Ingushetia.

Experts from the Health Ministry, Tatiana Fedorova, head obstetrician-gynaecologist of the Rostov Region, and Valentina Zabolotniaya, head obstetrician-gynaecologist of the Krasnodar Territory, visited several maternity wards and gynaecology departments, women’s consultation centres and outpatient clinics, and medical centres for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Chechya.

It was established that such basic indicators as reproductive health, perinatal mortality, still births, maternal mortality, and the number of pregnant women among IDPs significantly decreased in 1999 from 1998. On the whole, supplies of medicins, equipment, devices, and expendable materials are at a very low level. In Ingushetia, there are 85,500 women of fertile age. In addition, the Republic has one of the highest fertility figures in Russia (at a birth rate of 18.0; the natural growth rate is 12.0), despite the level of maternal mortality being twice as high as the country average (100 per 100,000 new-borns), and infant mortality is almost two-fold higher than the average indices (40.3% per 1,000 births). Particular concern is aroused by the fact that in Ingushetia, even in the republican hospital does not have a sexually transmitted diseases diagnostics laboratory or a pathologo-anatomic laboratory.

Particular attention must also be given to the quality of assistance to IDP camps, where almost one-third of the inhabitants are children. As a rule, there is only one physician (from among the IDPs) to an entire camp, who receives 90 to 150 patients every day. Electricity is periodically switched off, and the necessary medications and diagnostics equipment are almost non-existent.

On June 20, 2000 UNFPA and the NGO Network on reproductive health advocacy have organized a mass media round table devoted to the reproductive health and population issues. About 25 journalists from the central and regional press attended the event. Prominent speakers included Vladimir Serov, Chief Gyneacologist of Russia, Andrei Akopian, Director of Human Reproduction Centre, Igor Borisov, a psychologist, Sergei Zakharov, a demographer, Galina Klimantova, Deputy Chief of the Analytical Department of the Federation Council and Maria Arbatova, a famous wrighter.

Mikhail Yatkovsky of the Agency “Mikhailov and Partners” made a presentation of the content analysis of the publications in the press for the last 6 months of this year. The results were disturbing: the issues of reproductive health and population are not well covered in the press due to insufficient information or lack of understanding of the on-going processes in the field of reproductive health and demography. “Mikhailov and Partners” also noted that the organisations involved in reproductive health advocacy are not following a comprehensive and sustainable policy on public information.

Improving the reproductive health of the Russian youth is the main goal of a new project, Reproductive Health and the Reproductive Rights of the Russian Youth, the implementation of which has been assigned by the UN Foundation (Ted Turner Foundation) Board of Directors to the UNFPA Country Office in the Russian Federation.

Has Russia developed a coherent social development strategy? And what are the specific areas where countries can count on assistance from UN system funds and agencies? All these and other questions were in the focus of a roundtable on the follow-up to the Special Session of the General Assembly in Geneva Copenhagen +5, which was held on July 7 at the United Nations Information Centre in Moscow.

Alexander Gorelik, Director of the Information Centre, invited the participants to concentrate on identifying ways in which poverty eradication, the all-pervasive subject for the United Nations, had been further developed in the wake of the Geneva session and on innovations that had been proposed at the session and included in its final document.

Evgeny Gontmacher, Head of the Social Development Department, the Government Administration, started by reflecting on the extent to which the interests of Russia, a country with economy in transition, coincided with the interests of developing nations and to what extent Russia’s goals were close to developed countries’ priorities. He suggested that Russia define more clearly its position and decide whether it is strong enough to participate in the programmes of assistance to the Third World countries. Evgeny Gontmacher described Russia’s social policy as developed enough and sufficiently coherent. However, much still needs to be done to strengthen its individual elements, such as promoting social integration, assisting disabled people and veterans, broadening partnership with NGOs, and resolving problems in labour relations. It is in these areas that cooperation with UN agencies can be useful.

Vladimir Petrovsky, UN Under-Secretary-General and Director of the UN Office at Geneva, addressed the roundtable over the phone from Geneva. He referred to prevention of racial and sexual discrimination, greater attention to youth employment and the linkage between foreign debts and poverty eradication as topical issues that were widely debated by the General Assembly’s special session. And whatever acute problems the delegates addressed, he stressed, it was against the backdrop of globalization processes.