world population day
11 July, 2001

World population, 5.5 billion in 1992, will, according to the United Nations medium projection, reach 8.04 billion in 2025 and 9.4 billion in 2050. Over the next decade, more than half the population growth will be in Africa and South Asia where land degradation potential is most severe.

UNFPA is charged with extending sustained assistance to developing countries, at their request, in dealing with their population problems. Today, UNFPA supports programmes, policies and activities in some 160 countries.

All the actions and policies recommended in Chapter 5 aim at the integration of demographic trends and population factors into all aspects of sustainable development planning and environmental protection.

Thus, in the span of not quite 20 years, three major international conferences have called for concerted action on population, the environment and development, pointing to the continuing nature of the task. The following numbered paragraphs are highlights from three programme areas comprising 65 paragraphs in Chapter 5:

(A) "Formulating integrated national policies for environment and development, taking into account demographic trends and factors;

In this programme area, UNFPA, in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), has undertaken a major research and policy analysis project entitled, "Population and Sustainable Development: Mauritius." This project measured the interdependence between the size and structure of populations, their socio-economic and technological development, and their physical environment. Case studies of this nature could be used to build a comprehensive model that leads towards a better understanding of the population and environment link, development of appropriate methodologies to assess such links and formulation of policies to remedy undesirable interactions.

(B) "Developing and disseminating knowledge concerning the links between demographic trends and factors and sustainable development;

As part of its effort to ensure the integration of the population-resource balance in sectoral planning, UNFPA sponsored a guidebook on population, resources and environment in collaboration with the World Conservation Union (IUCN). This guidebook, which is available in English, French and Spanish, is used by planning officials in national planning ministries, and for awareness-creation at workshops and seminars. In 1997, a second guidebook prepared by IUCN with UNFPA’s support, was published. The book, entitled "Population and Strategies for Sustainable Development", serves as a resource and a guide to assist national-level policy makers and the staff of conservation organizations in linking population and environment in strategies for sustainable development.

(C)"Implementing integrated environment and development programmes at the local level, taking into account demographic trends and factors."

In Vietnam, UNFPA and the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) implemented an integrated project on Environmental Sanitation (ES), Intestinal Parasite Control (IPC), and Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning (MCH/FP) for Family Health designed to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate while reducing the parasite infestation rate. This project strengthened the MCH/FP/ES delivery system through the integrated approach by conducting training of project personnel, developing and supplying the appropriate information, education and communication strategy and materials.

In one of the sections of Agenda 21 called "Basis for action," the first programme area starts by defining the problem in three paragraphs reproduced here in their entirety:

"5.2. Demographic trends and factors and sustainable development have a synergistic relationship.

"5.3. The growth of world population and production combined with unsustainable consumption patterns places increasingly severe stress on the life-supporting capacities of our planet. These interactive processes affect the use of land, water, air, energy and other resources. Rapidly growing cities, unless well managed, face major environmental problems. The increase in both the number and size of cities calls for greater attention to issues of local government and municipal management. The human dimensions are key elements to consider in this intricate set of relationships and they should be adequately taken into consideration in comprehensive policies for sustainable development. Such policies should address the linkages of demographic trends and factors, resource use, appropriate technology dissemination, and development. Population policy should also recognize the role played by human beings in environmental and development concerns. There is a need to increase awareness of this issue among decision-makers at all levels and to provide both better information on which to base national and international policies and a frame-work against which to interpret this information.

"5.4. There is a need to develop strategies to mitigate both the adverse impact on the environment of human activities and the adverse impact of environmental change on human populations."

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