Population policies and strategies are shaped by the forces affecting the people they serve. Many issues of population and development are complex and interrelated. The ICPD Programme of Action states: "Efforts to slow down population growth, to reduce poverty, to achieve economic progress, to improve environmental protection, and to reduce unsustainable consumption and production patterns are mutually reinforcing."

Population and Development Issues

Poverty

Some 1.3 billion people are living in absolute poverty. Without higher standards of living, one fifth of the world's people will continue to suffer malnutrition, disease and illiteracy.

• Half of all people live on less than $2 a day, and the gap between rich and poor is widening.

Poverty alleviation is crucial to long-term economic and environmental sustainability. To end absolute poverty, key steps include cooperation between rich and poor countries, fair markets, debt reduction, good governance, aid for development and foreign direct investment. Reproductive health information and services are especially important for healthier mothers and healthier babies and to prevent HIV/AIDS. Equal access for women and men to education, health care and opportunities to earn income can go a long way towards empowering individuals to overcome poverty.

Environment

Rapid population growth, unbalanced consumption patterns and poverty intensify environmental health threats. In poor countries, women are the group most affected by environmental degradation and also the group able to affect the greatest change. The aim is sustainable development, which provides for people's needs without destroying the environment and depleting natural resources.

• The 20 per cent of the world's people living in the highest income countries are responsible for 86 per cent of total private consumption compared with the poorest 20 per cent, who account for only 1.3 per cent.

• The richest fifth of the world's population account for 53 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, the poorest fifth, 3 per cent.

• A child born in the industrial world adds more to consumption and pollution levels in one lifetime than do 30 to 50 children born in developing countries.

Reproductive rights are integrally linked to sustainable development. Slowing and stabilizing the rate of population growth gives countries time to take steps that meet people's needs and protect the environment - such as investing in basic social services, conserving fresh water, introducing more sustainable farming methods and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Ageing

More people are living to older ages with higher proportions of most countries' populations than at any time in history. Declines in fertility reinforced by increasing longevity are producing unprecedented changes. People are living longer and healthier lives from infancy to old age thanks to basic sanitation, clean drinking water and modern health care.

• Globally, the number of older persons (60 years or over) will nearly triple, increasing from 606 million today to nearly 2 billion by 2050. By that year, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young.

• As world fertility continues to decline and life expectancy rises, the population of the world will age faster in the next 50 years than during the past half century.

This ageing of the population has a variety of effects, from impacts on economic growth to family composition to voting patterns. Changes in family structure means than more elderly must work for income and that fewer benefit from the family support networks of the past. Urbanization often leads to young people being separated from their grandparents, who previously played a role in their traditional education and socialization. Traditional extended families are gradually disappearing in the Middle East, as is the case in Egypt, where 84 per cent of all households are now nuclear families. Children orphaned by HIV/AIDS may depend on older relatives for their care.

The older poor in developing countries, a majority of whom are women, are often overlooked by policies and programmes. Inadequate pension schemes and the erosion of traditional family support by migration, urbanization and other factors leave many older people in extreme difficulty. Many of 374 million older persons in less developed countries are living below the poverty line.

UNFPA supports policies that provide health services to all people in need, whether young or old; that recognize the care-giving role provided by older persons to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS; and that support efforts to eliminate discrimination, abuse and crime against older persons, especially women in poverty.

Urbanization

Urban and rural population of the more and less developed regions, 1950-2050:

Source: United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision

World urban population reached 2.9 billion in 2000 and is expected to rise to 5 billion by 2030. At the current rate of change, the number of urban dwellers in the world will equal the number of rural dwellers by 2007. The change is significant: in 1950 only 30 per cent of the world population lived in cities and by 2030 that percentage will double to 60 per cent. Almost all of this growth will be in less developed regions.

The high rate of growth in cities is will be accompanied by a reduction in the rural population. Urban areas will grow as a result of rural-urban migration and the transformation of rural settlements into cities. The same forces, combined with the expected universal reduction in fertility levels, will lead to a declining rural population.

Latin America and the Caribbean are highly urbanized today and will be even more so in the future, as will be Europe and North America. Asia and Africa are considerably less urbanized today, but rapid rates of urbanization are anticipated.

Tokyo is the largest urban agglomeration in the world, with 26.4 million people, and is expected to remain the largest, although its population will not grow. It is followed in size by Mexico City, Bombay, São Paulo and New York. Most people will live in smaller urban settlements and cities, not huge urban agglomerations.

International Migration

Half of the over 125 million people living outside their countries of origin reside in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the movements of people within borders, international migration is also increasing. International migration includes both permanent migration and temporary or labour migration - which may be for long periods, even decades - as well as the movement of refugees and undocumented migrants. More countries are hosting larger migrant populations.

Women make up nearly half of the international migrant population. They are increasingly likely to move for employment and other reasons, along with family reunification policies. Women migrants frequently end up in the low-status, low-wage production and service jobs, and are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, including sexual abuse.

Causes that motivate international migration include:

• The search for a better life for oneself and family;

• Income disparities among and within regions;

• The labour and migration policies of sending and receiving countries;

• Political conflict (which drives migration across borders as well as within countries);

• Environmental degradation, including the loss of farmland, forests and pasture (most "environmental refugees" go to cities rather than abroad);

• "Brain drain", or the migration of more educated young people from developing countries to fill gaps in the work forces of industrialized countries.

In many receiving countries, industries and infrastructure are built and maintained, in part, by migrant labour. The economic effects of migration run both ways, with remittances from migrants flowing from more to less-developed parts of the world.

Demographic Trends

Notable shifts in population movements today involve rapid urbanization, the movement of refugees and displaced persons, and international migration. Movements of people, which will continue and increase in the future, affect patterns of development. Much of this movement is forced by conditions such as poverty or environmental degradation.

Virtually all population growth in the next decades will be concentrated in the urban areas of the world. Urban growth has outpaced employment and services and is often accompanied by poverty, yet cities offer opportunities for social change and economic development.

• 125 million people (2 per cent of world population) are living outside the countries of their birth, including refugees and undocumented migrants. International migration is projected to remain high during the twenty-first century.

• Particularly rapid growth is expected among the group of 48 countries classified as least developed (LDCs). Their population is expected to nearly triple between 2000 and 2050, passing from 658 million to 1.8 billion. Fertility in these countries is high relative to other developing countries, with 5.74 children per woman in 1995-2000. Although this will drop to 2.51 children per woman in 2045-2050, this level is still relatively high.

• HIV/AIDS is cutting life expectancy nearly in half in the most-affected countries. Nevertheless, population growth is expected to continue in these countries because of continued high fertility.

Collecting Population Data

Accurate data supports UNFPA efforts to develop population and development strategies, a central area of UNFPA activity. The collection and analysis of population data provides crucial information that countries need in order to formulate population policies and strategies. Such data helps planners understand how forces such as population growth, urbanization, ageing and so on affect people now and in the future.

Only with an in-depth understanding of population and development can international agencies and national governments respond with appropriate plans, and motivate political will for action. UNFPA supports capacity building for:

• National censuses and surveys at the national, regional and local levels;

• Database development;

• Training programmes in statistics, demography and population and development studies;

• Analysis of population and development issues such as poverty, ageing, migration and gender;

• Participation in UN projects pertaining to research and information systems, The Demographic and Health Survey Project, and information networks such as the United Nations Population Information Network (www.undp.org/popin/), as well as regional networks such as POPIN-Africa and Asia/Pacific POPIN.

Planners need good data on population size, growth and distribution (by age, gender, and urban or rural residence), as well as on life expectancy, fertility, birth and death rates, infant and maternal mortality, marriages, school enrolment and employment.

Statistics must be broken down by gender, ethnicity, economic status and other variables. Even basic social and economic statistics are not always broken down by gender, which obscures the situation of women.

Much better gender-specific data is needed, particularly for the informal and agricultural sectors. Much of the work that women do is "invisible" in national accounting and censuses, despite its obvious productive and social worth. One reason for this undercounting is that women's activities tend to be concentrated in small-scale agriculture, the informal sector and the - areas for which data are still notoriously deficient. In addition, women's work is often unpaid - carrying water, collecting fuel, processing and cooking food and caring for children. An accurate accounting of women's contribution to development and overall social welfare would go a log way towards challenging the low value currently attached to women's work.

Despite great improvement in data collection and analysis, the basic demographic indicators provided by many countries are unreliable, incomplete or difficult to obtain. This so-called "data barrier" is an obstacle for planners in many developing countries.

The collection of internationally comparable data is only the beginning of the process. Data must be adequately analysed, widely disseminated and formally integrated in development planning - all of which requires complex skills and, consequently, technical training.

Examples of UNFPA in Action

• As part of a five-year project to assist Cambodia in developing a national policy on population and development, UNFPA is supporting efforts to improve research, and to collect, analyse and disseminate new population-related data.

• UNFPA provided Eritrea with 20 all-terrain vehicles to help it prepare for its first census, making it possible to reach remote and nomadic populations and to transport field mapping teams and census and survey enumerators.

• India completed the 2001 census of its billion-strong population with support from UNFPA to train enumerators and census supervisors, and to produce television spots in regional languages.

• In partnership with 15 countries, UNFPA supported training by the International Institute on Ageing in Malta to enable policymakers, programme planners and educators from developing countries to develop effective ways to address the growing needs of the older poor.