Nearly every country in Latin America and the Caribbean has made great progress over the last 40 years in family health care, which has contributed to a large increase in life expectancy. The growth of urban areas in mega-cities such as S o Paulo and Mexico City and of squatter populations is a critical problem, as are teenage pregnancy and illegal abortion. Fertility is falling rapidly in many Latin American and Caribbean countries, but family planning programmes still lag behind in fulfilling the demand for modern contraceptive services. Between 18 and 20 per cent of couples still lack access to safe, affordable and effective family planning methods. In the Arab States, improvement of the status of women, and high rates of migration and urban growth are of great concern.
High fertility is seen as a health hazard to mothers and children.
The region has a varied and often high incidence of maternal mortality, and some countries have high population growth rates. Several countries are concerned about rapid population growth and have been successful in improving reproductive health and spreading the use of modern family planning. Reproductive health indicators have been developed to assist in evaluating programme success. Another 24 per cent was allocated for population and development strategies, including data collection and analysis, research on demographic and socio-economic relationships, and population policy formulation, implementation and evaluation.