TEHRAN - The new United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative in Iran has voiced support for the Islamic Republic’s plans to stimulate population growth.

In a meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday, Leila Saiji Joudane said that the UN organization supports Iran’s national strategy for population growth that seeks to seize future opportunities linked to population. 

Zarif stressed the need for closer cooperation with the UNFPA by respecting “the cultural values of Islamic countries” and expressed readiness to cooperate with the UN body to formulate new population policies. 

UNFPA was founded in 1969 and is “the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled”. 

Their work involves the improvement of reproductive health, including creation of national strategies and protocols and providing supplies and services. The organization has also campaigned against obstetric fistula (a largely neglected childbirth injury caused by unassisted, prolonged and obstructed labour) and female genital mutilation. 

The UNFPA supports programs in more than 150 countries, territories and areas across the four geographic regions of the world: Arab States and Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. 

In May 2014, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei outlined general policies in Iran aimed at encouraging population growth to compensate for the declining birth rate over the past years.

The Leader referred to the country’s young generation as an “opportunity and privilege”, stressing that the general policies aim to make up for a reduction in population growth and fertility rate over the past years. 

KB/PA