State of the World Population Report 2008 launched in Nairobi.

12 November 2008 – The State of World Population 2008 report was launched today at a function in Nairobi. The report titled "Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights" has a starting point that human rights reflect universal values. It calls for culturally sensitive approaches to development because they are essential for human rights in general, and women’s rights in particular. It also points out that the UNFPA approach integrates work towards human rights and gender equality with cultural sensitivity.

Overview of the report

Culture is and always has been central to development. As a natural and fundamental
dimension of people’s lives, culture must be integrated into development policy and programming. This report shows how this process works in practice. The starting point of the report is the universal validity of the international human rights framework. The focus is therefore on discussing and showcasing how culturally sensitive approaches are critical for the realization of human rights
in general and women’s rights in particular.

The report gives an overview of the conceptual frameworks as well as the practice of development, looking at the everyday events that make up people’s experience of development. Culturally sensitive approaches call for cultural fluency – familiarity with how cultures work, and how to work with them. The report presents some of the challenges and dilemmas of culturally sensitive strategies and suggests how partnerships can address them.

Culture – inherited patterns of shared meanings and common understandings – influences how people manage their lives, and provides the lens through which they interpret their society. Cultures affect how people think and act; but they do not produce uniformity of thought or behaviour.
Cultures must be seen in their wider context: They influence and are influenced by external circumstances and change in response. They are not static; people are continuously involved in reshaping them, although some aspects of culture continue to influence choices and lifestyles for very long periods.

Cultural customs, norms, behaviours and attitudes are as varied as they are elusive and dynamic. It is risky to generalize, and it is particularly dangerous to judge one culture by the norms and values of another. Such over-simplification can lead to the assumption that every member of a culture thinks the same way. This is not only a mistaken perception but ignores one of the drivers of cultural change, which is multiple expressions of internal resistance, out of which transitions emerge. The movement towards gender equality is a good example of this process at work.

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