The purpose of this conference is to reach some kind of conclusion with regard to the women's issues that we had discussed in the last two years, and to discuss and adopt the Manila Proposal with the aim of submitting a concrete proposal to Governments, It was in February of 1994 that the Asian Parliamentarians' Meeting on Population and Development addressed the women's issues based on the notion that "Women are the subject, not the object, of the population problem. The population problem cannot be solved without solving the women's issues. "

We take much pride in the farsightedness of Asia as this was an effort that was made prior to the International Conference on Population and Development in which "Reproductive Health and Rights," "Empowerment of Women" and "Improvement of Women's Status" were discussed as main agenda.

I think that it is very significant that this discussion that we have been conducting for the last three years is going to be summed up here in the Philippines where social advancement of women is so conspicuous. Following its adoption, the parliamentarians attending this meeting are requested to hand over the Proposal to their respective Governments and work towards turning our discussion into reality so that we can take a steady step in solving the population problem.

With the adoption of this Proposal, we will conclude our three-year discussion on the issue of population and women at this meeting.

It goes without saying that the efforts to solve the population problem must not cease even for a moment. Conferences of much importance for the population and development issue were held consecutively in the last three years, giving rise to heated discussions on various aspects of population and development and resulting in conclusion of international agreements.

In September 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo, Egypt to decide on the population policy for the next 20 years; in March 1995, the World Summit on Social Development was held in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss correction of social inequality, eradication of poverty and realization of social justice; and in September of the same year, the Fourth Women Conference on Women was held in Beijing on the theme of empowerment and improvement of social status for women.

We, the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, held the International Conference of Parliamentarians' on Population and Development, the International Parliamentarians' Meeting on Population and Social Development and the International Parliamentarians' Meeting on Gender, Population and Development in conjunction with these meetings by calling out to the regional federations of parliamentarians all over the world. The manner through which the population and development problem is ad-dressed in the Asian region has spread to the world and inspired the establishment of federation of parliamentarians for the population and development problem in the Africa-Middle East region. Our activities in Asia has become the driving force behind the international activities to tackle the population problem.