Conference to focus on overpopulation

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 19

Conference to focus on overpopulation

Report by World Population News Service in Washington

The world’s population soared by 82 million last year — the largest 12-month increase in history — and about 90 per cent of the increment occurred in the world’s poorest countries. World population, estimated at 4.7 billion, is projected to surpass six billion by the end of the century, exacerbating problems of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, unemployment, environmental degradation, and urban deterioration. Virtually the entire international community will focus on these and other issues related to burgeoning global population growth at the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Population, to be held at Mexico City from August 6 to 13. The conference marks the first time that governments of the world, representatives of the United Nations, and concerned private organisations will address the problems of population since the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania. The aims of the Mexico City conference are to strengthen and sustain the momentum already generated in population activities; identify emerging problems for concerted action; and initiate programmes in areas where no significant impact has yet been achieved. Included on the agenda will be deliberations on what 'to do about continuing high population growth

rates in many developing nations, the explosive growth of urban areas, and the successes and failures of population programmes during the past decade. A major function of the Mexico City conference will be to review and strengthen the World Population Plan of Action, a document adopted at Bucharest, which contains a variety of population objectives, policies, and activities that have served as a guide for the world’s governments over the past decade. The United Nations Economic and Social Council, meeting last November, concluded that, while the principles and objectives of the plan were still valid, a new conference should be convened to review the plan in light of a decade’s experience with population programming. “Our knowledge and experience of population today is much more extensive and sophisticated than it was in 1974,” says Rafael M. Salas, secretary-general of the Mexico City conference and executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. He says that the importance of population to the-development process is now widely accepted and

that, in setting a future course of action, the coming meeting “should take into account this body of knowledge and carefully assess the impact of new population problems and perspectives on over-all development plans and programmes.” Countries that integrated family planning with development planning have experienced positive results, Mr Salas says. As an example, he cites improvements in the status of women, better health care, and available family planning services which have succeeded in reducing infant mortality worldwide. When family planning has been combined with programmes of population education, he adds, it has produced a decline in fertility, increasingly the object of national population policies. However, Mr Salas concluded, the debate continues over the complex nature of the relationship between population and other aspects of development. “Rapid urbanisation and uncontrolled urban growth indicate a need for fresh policies. Further research is needed into the impact of international migration both on the host countries and, on the areas of out-migration.” v