Background Release

COMMISSION ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT TO FOCUS ON OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES

OF WORLD URBANIZATION, DURING 7-11 APRIL MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

NEW YORK, 3 April (United Nations Population Division) -- The growing urbanization of world population can have positive impacts on combating poverty, inequality and environmental degradation if measures are put in place ahead of time to seize the opportunities and confront the challenges it presents, notes a United Nations report prepared for the forty-first session of the Commission on Population and Development, which will meet from 7 to 11 April.

According to the Secretary-General’s report on population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and their implications for development (document E/CN.9/2008/3), in 2008, the number of people living in cities (3.4 billion) will equal, for the first time in history, the number of people living in rural areas.  From now on, virtually the full increase in the urban population is expected to occur in developing countries.  Natural increase, which is the excess of births over deaths, continues to make sizeable contributions to urban population growth, often accounting for 60 per cent or more of that growth in developing countries.

Internal migration from rural to urban areas permits a reallocation of the labour force to more productive activities and opens new opportunities for migrants.  As urbanization is a process that is intrinsically related to development, it must be managed in ways that maximize its potential benefits and prevent its negative consequences, the report emphasizes.

Priority should be given to improvement of service delivery to the urban poor and to residents of small cities and rural areas, notes the report.  Services that are most conducive to improving the well-being of the populations involved include those related to health delivery, notably reproductive health, schooling, and access to improved sanitation and to improved and secure sources of drinking water.

In deciding the location of public health facilities, authorities should consider their accessibility to poor urban dwellers.  The location of such facilities in small towns linked to surrounding rural areas can also improve the accessibility of rural dwellers to health services.

The Commission on Population and Development will focus on these trends and their implications when it meets for its forty-first session to discuss the special theme of “Population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development”.

Four keynote speakers will address the session.  David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development, will speak on 7 April on urbanization and internal migration:  their relevance for sustainable development.  Mark Montgomery, Senior Associate at the Policy Research Division of the Population Council and Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, will speak on 8 April, about urban growth and poverty.  Helen Zille, Mayor of Cape Town and former Minister of Education in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, will also address the Commission on 8 April, talking about urban governance, lessons learned and challenges ahead:  The example of Cape Town.  Lastly, Eduardo Moreno, Chief of the Global Urban Observatory of the Monitoring System Branch of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), will focus on improving the lives of urban slum dwellers when he addresses the Commission on 9 April.

A press conference on 10 April at 1:15 p.m. will feature the four keynote speakers, Mr. Satterthwaite, Mr. Montgomery, Ms. Zille and Mr. Moreno.

Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration, Development

Urbanization is a process that is intrinsically related to development, and it must be managed in ways that maximize its potential benefits and prevent its negative consequences, says the report of the Secretary-General on world population monitoring, focusing on population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development (document E/CN.9/2008/3).

Urbanization is pervasive and unavoidable.  In 2008, the number of urban dwellers (3.4 billion) will equal, for the first time in history, the number of rural dwellers.  According to current projections, the world can expect the urban population to increase by 3.1 billion persons by 2050, whereas the rural population will peak at 3.5 billion around 2019 and decline thereafter.  Virtually the full increase in the urban population is expected to occur in developing countries.  Natural increase continues to make sizeable contributions to urban population growth, often accounting for 60 per cent or more of that growth in developing countries.  Yet major disparities remain in the level of urbanization attained by different countries and regions.

The transformative power of urbanization was felt earlier in today’s more developed regions, which have reached high levels of urbanization, surpassing 80 per cent in Australia, New Zealand and North America.   Europe is the least urbanized major area in the developed world, with 72 per cent of its population living in urban areas.  Among the less developed regions, Latin America and the Caribbean have an exceptionally high level of urbanization (78 per cent), higher than that of Europe.  Africa and Asia, in contrast, remain mostly rural, with 38 per cent and 41 per cent, respectively, of their populations living in urban areas.  Yet half of the urban population in the world lived in Asia in 2007.   Europe had the second highest share at 16 per cent.

Today’s 3.4 billion urban dwellers are distributed unevenly among urban settlements of different size.  In discussing urbanization, the focus is often on large cities, cities with more inhabitants than many countries in the world.  Naturally, those cities or urban agglomerations tend to be concentrated in populous countries.  In 2007, 19 urban agglomerations qualified as megacities, that is, they have at least 10 million inhabitants (see table 3).  The most populous, Tokyo, has nearly 36 million inhabitants, but it encompasses all contiguous densely inhabited districts in Tokyo (ku-bu) plus those in 87 surrounding cities and towns, including Yokohama, Kawasaki and Chiba, important cities in their own right.  The term urban agglomeration is used to indicate that the settlements considered are often a combination of several distinct units located close to one another and having a variety of functional linkages.

Overall, the spatial distribution of the population is linked to the territorial distribution of economic and social opportunities.  Urbanization is shaped by the clustering of productive activity, where firms benefit from proximity to other firms, whether in the same industry or in complementary sectors.  Beneficial urbanization depends on the availability and quality of public services, including access to electricity, water, education and health services, transportation and communication.

Urbanization is a process that is intrinsically related to development, and it must be managed in ways that maximize its potential benefits and prevent its negative consequences, the report recommends.

-- The improvement of service delivery to the urban poor and to the inhabitants of small cities and rural areas needs to be given priority.  Services that are most conducive to improving the well-being of the populations involved include those related to health delivery, including reproductive health, schooling and access to improved sanitation and to improved and secure sources of drinking water.

-- In deciding the location of public health facilities, authorities should consider their accessibility to poor urban dwellers.  The location of such facilities in small towns linked to surrounding rural areas can also improve the access of rural dwellers to health services.

-- To reduce potential population growth in urban and rural areas alike, priority should be given to meeting the needs of poor urban dwellers and rural inhabitants for family planning.  Without sustained reductions in fertility in both urban and rural areas, the urban population in developing countries will grow faster than projected.

Among the other recommendations:

-- Because HIV prevalence is generally higher in urban than in rural areas, priority should be given to the provision of adequate information on the prevention of HIV infection and treatment services to urban dwellers and to temporary rural-urban migrants.

-- In addressing the needs of the older population, Governments need to take into account that, in many contexts, a higher proportion of the older population lives in rural than in urban areas.

-- There continues to be a need for poverty reduction strategies to focus on the rural poor in developing countries.  Ensuring secure land tenure, improving access to water resources, encouraging investment to enhance agricultural productivity, developing rural infrastructure and facilitating access to credit are measures to consider for the improvement of rural livelihoods.

-- In order to accommodate future urban growth, local authorities need to plan ahead, especially by providing the urban poor with serviced land to build and improve their own housing.  In doing so, measures to secure property rights are indispensable.

-- To increase the effectiveness of policies aimed at improving the lives of urban dwellers, particularly the poor or those living in slums, local authorities should encourage and support the active involvement of civil society organizations representing the relevant groups.

-- Decisions taken today in cities across the world will shape the economic, social and environmental future of humankind.  Properly managed urbanization can help in combating poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, but action to capitalize on the opportunities it presents and to address the challenges it raises must be prompt and sustained.

Population Programmes

Also before the Commission is a report of the Secretary-General on monitoring of population programmes, focusing on population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development (document E/CN.9/2008/4).  The scale of ongoing urban growth is unprecedented in history, says the report, and has significant economic, social, demographic and environmental implications.  The report stresses that the challenge is to move away from the negative stereotypes and the negative policies of the past and promote measures that take into account rapid urban growth and the needs of the urban poor.

The report describes the programmatic work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to assist countries throughout the world in responding to the challenges of rapid urbanization, especially in the areas of policy dialogue, capacity-building, data collection, research and advocacy, by providing examples of national programmes for which it has provided assistance.

A good strategy for policy and programmatic support to ensure that urbanization and internal migration are taken into account in national development frameworks and poverty reduction strategies should encompass policy dialogue, capacity-building, data collection, research and advocacy.  Policy dialogue among and within Governments, the United Nations system, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector and advocacy are essential to raise awareness among all stakeholders of the importance of formulating proactive policies to plan for urban growth.  Strengthening the national capacity of developing countries to address the challenges of rapid urban growth is essential.

There is an urgent need for reliable and timely data disaggregated by age, sex, socio-economic status and health status for evidence-based policy formulation and programme planning, monitoring and evaluation.  There is also a need to encourage and advance culture- and gender-sensitive research to identify emerging issues, provide evidence for effective policies and adopt recommendations.  The dissemination of data and research findings and the exchange of experiences, lessons learned and good practices are important components of institutional capacity-building in this area.

Urbanization, when accompanied by appropriate policies, can be beneficial for development.  Cities are places of opportunity and hope.  Migrants generally express a preference for cities over the rural settlements they left behind.  The potential benefits of cities far outweigh their disadvantages.  Cities offer significant opportunities to enhance development and promote sustainability.  Exploiting the potential of urban growth requires a proactive attitude and approach.  Urbanization should be an integral part of national and global efforts to reduce poverty.  Good governance and sound urban policies can serve to reduce poverty and gender inequality and to promote sustainable development.  Future plans must have an approach that integrates cities and rural areas.  Both urban and rural development are necessary, and addressing both in an integrated way will provide the best chances for success.

Prepared by UNFPA, the report also summarizes the Fund’s publication on the State of World Population 2007:  Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth.

Financial Flows

A report of the Secretary-General on the flow of financial resources for assisting in the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (document E/CN.9/2008/5) provides expected levels of donor and domestic expenditures for population activities in developing countries for 2006, and estimates for expenditures in 2007 and projections for 2008.

The report, prepared by UNFPA, says that donor assistance has been increasing steadily over the past few years, reaching $7.4 billion in 2005.  If this trend continues, donor assistance may have reached $8.1 billion in 2006, $9.8.billion in 2007 and to $10.3 billion in 2008.  These optimistic estimates assume that donors increase their funding levels, but many major donors have not yet released their 2006 funding figures.

A rough estimate of resources mobilized by developing countries as a group yielded a figure of $23 billion for 2006.  This number is expected to increase to $25 billion in 2007 and $27 billion in 2008.  These figures also assume that developing countries continue to increase the resources devoted to population activities.

Although provisional figures show that both donors and developing countries are on target and indeed may have surpassed the 2005 goal of $18.5 billion, this conclusion is misleading, because the resources mobilized do not adequately address current needs, which have escalated considerably since the 1994 Population Conference and now include HIV/AIDS treatment.  Indeed, for many developing countries, the lack of adequate funding remains the chief constraint to the full implementation of the Action Programme.

The recent increase in the flow of financial resources has been primarily a result of the increase in funding for HIV/AIDS activities.  But these increases still do not meet current demands for resources to combat HIV/AIDS or treat those infected, which is higher than anticipated when the targets were set.  Funding for family planning, which has been decreasing steadily, did not reach the suggested target of $11.5 billion in 2005, and is not meeting current needs.

The target amount may not be sufficient to address current global needs, even in the area of HIV/AIDS, where most of the increase in funding has occurred and where, according to the most recent estimates by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), $18 billion is needed in 2007.  If not reversed, the trend towards less funding for family planning could undermine efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce maternal and infant mortality.

The report recommends that population issues figure prominently in national development programmes and poverty reduction strategies; that family planning and reproductive health issues receive the attention they deserve at a time when the increased focus is on combating HIV/AIDS; that the private sector play a role in mobilizing resources for population and development, in monitoring expenditures and in ensuring that targets are met; and that adequate resources be allocated to all areas of the Action Programme -- family planning, reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS and basic research and analysis.

Other Documents

A report of the Secretary-General on programme implementation and progress of work in the field of population in 2007 (document E/CN.9/2008/6) reviews the progress made by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in implementing its work programme in 2007.  It covers such activities as the analysis of fertility, mortality and international migration; world population estimates and projections; population policies; the analysis of population and development interrelationship; the preparation of publications and documents; and the substantive servicing of intergovernmental bodies.

A report of the Bureau of the Commission on its Intersessional Meetings (document E/CN.9/2008/2) focuses on such meetings held in New York on 16 October 2007, 11 December 2007 and in Sofia on 14 and 15 January 2008.  The Bureau focused on the organization of the Commission’s forty-first session and discussed the relationship of the Commission with the Economic and Social Council, the implications of relevant General Assembly resolutions for the Commission’s work and the Secretariat’s work programme in the field of population.

A note by the Secretariat (document E/CN.9/2008/7) contains the proposed strategic framework for the period 2010-2011 for subprogramme 6, population, of programme 7, economic and social affairs.

Background of Commission

The Population Commission was established by the Economic and Social Council in 1946 and renamed Commission on Population and Development by the General Assembly in 1994.  The Commission, as a functional commission assisting the Council, is to monitor, review and assess the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, at the national, regional and international levels, and to advise the Council thereon.

The Commission is composed of 47 members, who are elected on the basis of equitable geographic distribution and serve a term of four years.  The members for the forty-first session are Armenia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, China, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, France, Gambia, Germany, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Uruguay and Zambia.

For further information, please visit www.unpopulation.org or contact the office of Hania Zlotnik, Director, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, tel.:  212 963 3179, fax:  212 963 2147.

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For information media • not an official record