Interregional
Programmes
Reproductive health
Population and development strategies
Advocacy
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Africa
Arab States
Central and Eastern Europe
Asia and the Pacific
Latin America and the
Caribbean
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Population and development strategies
In the key area of population and development strategies, UNFPA supported the
development and use of new methodologies in data collection, processing and dissemination.
A project being executed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is developing
planning and management tools to facilitate the integration of demographic variables into
forestry planning. A second FAO-executed project focuses on the population dynamics in
artisan fishing communities by integrating population concerns into fisheries research
programmes and into the training of staff of fisheries development agencies in south-east
Asia, south Asia, west Africa and east Africa.
Support continued for activities promoting the use of a geographical information system
software (POPMAP) and the Population Information Network (POPIN). An evaluation of POPMAP
found the software easy to use and uniquely suited to the needs of developing countries.
The POPIN project has been assessed as exceptionally successful in disseminating
population information in an innovative and cost-effective fashion.
In 1997, UNFPA supported research activities of several organizations, such as the efforts
of the Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography
(CICRED), to promote collaborative research among demographic research centres in
developing countries. In a Fund-supported project with Brown University, migration experts
are being trained to work on population distribution in their countries, develop survey
instruments and sample designs and use the resulting findings as the basis for policy
formulation and evaluation. The first of a series of workshops was held in Hanoi, Viet
Nam, in 1997. Support was also provided for research conducted by the World Conservation
Union (IUCN), on the integration of population and environment in strategies for
sustainable development. The IUCN published a book in great demand, entitled Population
and Strategies for Sustainable Development, which serves as a resource for national-level
policy makers and the staff of conservation organizations.
A number of projects were devoted to dissemination of population research. UNFPA and
Harvard University jointly published Volume 20 of the Annual Review of Population Law and
the Center for Communication Programs at Johns Hopkins University disseminated a
searchable database of 250,000 bibliographic abstracts on CD-ROM to developing countries.
To help ensure the availability and quality of population and reproductive data, UNFPA
funded a workshop on the application of new technologies for database management and data
dissemination, which was held in Addis Ababa from 3-8 November 1997. Participants from 32
countries from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean participated in the workshop. The
International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) held its XXIIIrd
Population Conference in Beijing, co-sponsored by UNFPA, which held a special session on
the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action.
Under the Global Training Programme in Population and Sustainable Development, a major
component of the Fund’s efforts in the area of population and development strategies,
an Expert Group Meeting was convened by UNFPA in February 1997. The Expert Group made a
number of recommendations with respect to substantive issues in curriculum development, as
well as with respect to operations and management issues. Subsequently, the Scientific
Advisory Committee met in Rabat, Morocco, in June 1997 to follow up on the recommendations
of the Expert Group. There was a wide-ranging discussion of both the substantive content
of the programme and of problems related to the presentation of courses to trainees of
diverse backgrounds and skill levels. The Committee reviewed all the instructional
materials and underscored the need to revise them to more explicitly reflect the ICPD
Programme of Action. The Committee also explored the possibility of offering short courses
on particular topics in population and sustainable development at selected centres in
addition to the regular nine-month diploma courses that it is currently providing.
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