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Migration and Urbanization
During the past ten years, migration has increased,
both within and between countries, and the phenomenon
has grown in political importance.
Recognizing that orderly migration can have
positive consequences on both sending and receiving
countries, the ICPD Programme of Action (Chapters IX
and X) called for a comprehensive approach to managing
migration. It emphasized both the rights and
well-being of migrants and the need for international
support to assist affected countries and promote more
interstate cooperation around the issue.
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| MANAGING MIGRATION |
In order to achieve a balanced spatial distribution of production employment and population, countries
should adopt sustainable regional development strategies and strategies for the encouragement of urban consolidation, the growth of small or medium-sized urban centres and the sustainable development of rural areas, including the adoption of labour-intensive projects, training for non-farming jobs for youth and effective transport and communication systems. To create an enabling context for local development, including the provision of services, governments should consider decentralizing their administrative systems. |
| —from ICPD Programme of Action, para. 9.4 |
By 2007, for the first time in human history, more
than half the people in the world will be living in
cities, the result of a continuing movement of people
that has led to a tremendous growth of urban areas in
developing countries in the past decade. Helping
countries respond to this population shift was a key
priority for the ICPD.
The Programme of Action devoted an entire chapter
to the spatial distribution of the population and internal population movements. It recognized that
people move within countries in response to the
inequitable distribution of resources, services and
opportunities. Push factors—particularly rural
poverty—and pull factors—the attraction of more
economically dynamic urban areas and new land
tenure prospects in rural frontiers—contribute to
these population movements.
As can be the case for international migration, a
significant proportion of internal migration is temporary,
for example, with labour migrants returning to
their farms during busy seasons.
Like earlier population conferences, the ICPD
sought to promote integrated and sustainable development
policies to address imbalances within countries
and between population growth and economic
growth. Action recommendations aimed to improve
infrastructure and services for poor, indigenous
groups and other underserved rural populations.
Another focus was managing population growth
and developing infrastructure in large urban areas.
These are urgent challenges for development and for improving the lives of the poor, many of whom live in
slums and peri-urban settlements with limited access
to health care and other services.(1)
The ICPD recognized the economic dynamism of
large urban settlements, but also acknowledged the
growing importance of medium-sized cities and of
migration between cities.(2)
Today, more policy attention is being given to the
economic diversity within cities and neighbourhoods,
where rich and poor often live in close proximity.(3)
Millennium Development Goal 7, Ensure environmental
sustainability, has as a target, “By 2020,
achieve significant improvement in the lives of
at least 100 million slum dwellers.”
The latest estimates and projections indicate a
majority of the global population will be urban by
2007.(4) The number of urban dwellers will rise from
3 billion in 2003 (48 per cent of the total population)
to 5 billion in 2030 (60 per cent). Most of this urban
growth will be due to natural fertility rather than
migration. The rural population will decline slightly
in the same period, from 3.3 to 3.2 billion.
The urban population is projected to grow by 1.8
per cent per year between 2000 and 2030, almost
twice as fast as global population growth. Lessdeveloped
regions will grow by 2.3 per cent and are
expected to be majority urban by 2017. By 2030 all
regions of the world will have urban majorities
(Africa will reach 54 per cent urban; Asia, 55 per
cent). Almost all of the world’s total population
growth in this period will be in urban areas of
developing countries.
HIV/AIDS has added a new element of uncertainty
to these projections.(5) Overall, infection rates have
tended to be higher in urban areas. In heavily affected
areas, higher urban death rates and lower fertility
rates might slow the pace of urbanization or even
result in a decline in urban population.
Today there are 20 cities of more than 10 million
people (15 in developing countries), containing 4
per cent of the global population; by 2015 there will
be 22 such mega-cities (16 in developing countries),
with 5 per cent of the global population.
Cities with fewer than 1 million persons will add
400 million people by 2015, and more than 90 per cent
of this growth will be in cities of fewer than 500,000. This will require vast improvements in local infrastructure
and in the capacity to manage public
services, particularly as decision-making is increasingly
being decentralized to local municipalities
and districts.
Greater attention will have to be given as well to
the needs of the urban poor, whose access to health
and other services is far worse than that of richer city
dwellers and often not much better than rural conditions.
Unmet need for family planning among the
urban poor in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, is nearly as great as for rural populations
(in South-east Asia it is greater). The urban poor
are similarly disadvantaged with regard to skilled
birth attendance and knowledge about avoiding
HIV/AIDS.
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