Reducing Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Development

• Population dynamics and trends, which are closely linked to economic progress, must be taken into consideration if the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be achieved.


• There is a strong link between rapid population growth and high fertility, ill-timed pregnancies and poverty. Poverty perpetuates poor health and population growth and high fertility can exacerbate poverty.


• Ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, including voluntary family planning, is essential for achieving the MDGs, according to the UN Millennium Project.

The Flow of Financial Resources to Population Activities

• The financial resources for the package of population and reproductive health programmes agreed to at the International Conference on Population and Development were US$17 billion by 2000 and $18.5 billion by 2005—two thirds from the countries themselves and one third from the international donor community.(1)


• In 2003, donors contributed about $3.1 billion, just 54 per cent of the donor commitment for 2000 and 51 per cent of the requirement for 2005. Domestic expenditures for the package in developing countries were estimated at $11.7 billion in 2003.(2)

Population and Poverty

• Some 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty, on less than a dollar a day. Another 2.7 billion survive on less than $2 a day.(3)


• 852 million people are chronically or acutely malnourished, some 300 million of them children. Every year more than 5.5 million children die of malnutrition-related causes. (4)


• 114 million children do not get a basic education, and 584 million women are illiterate. (5)


• The net increase in population is occurring in developing countries and, in many of them, the number of people living in poverty is rising.


• 350 million couples worldwide lack access to the full range of modern family methods and 137 million women would like to prevent or delay pregnancy but are not using any method of family planning. (6)


• 40 million people are infected with HIV. In 2004 alone, some 3.1 million people died of AIDS, including 500,000 children under 15. (7)


• If 15 per cent of a country’s population is HIV-positive (a level nine countries are expected to reach by 2010), gross domestic product declines by about 1 per cent each year. (8)


• The size, growth, age structure and rural-urban distribution of a country’s population have a critical impact on development prospects and on living standards of the poor.


• The countries where poverty levels are highest are generally those that have the most rapid increases in population.


• There is substantial evidence that slower population growth and investments in reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, education, women’s empowerment and gender equality reduce poverty.

Population Trends

• In mid-2005, world population was 6.5 billion people, 380 million more than in 2000. Currently, approximately 76 million people are added to the population every year. (9)


• World population is expected to rise in the next 45 years by 2.6 billion, to reach a total of 9.1 billion in 2050. (10)


• The population of the 50 poorest countries is projected to more than double by 2050, and to at least triple in 12 of them. (11)


• The overall population of the more developed countries will change little in the next 45 years, remaining at about 1.2 billion. (12)


• Fertility rates are continuing to drop at the world level: In 1950-1955, the average woman had 5 children; in 2000-2005, the worldwide fertility rate was 2.65 children per woman; and in 2050, it is expected to be slightly over 2 children per woman. (13)


• In the 50 least developed countries, fertility is 5 children per woman and is expected to drop by about half, to 2.57 children per woman by 2045-2050. (14)


• A person born in 1955, according to the worldwide average, could expect to live to be 47. Now global life expectancy at birth is 65, and is expected to keep on rising to reach 75 by 2045-2050. (15)


• A child born today in the 50 poorest countries can expect to live on average to 51, and life expectancy by 2045-2050 is expected to be 66.5. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy declined precipitously from 62 in 1990-1995 to 48 in 2000-2005. It is projected to decrease even further to 43 over the next decade. (16)

Migration

• Some 175 million people, 3 per cent of the world’s population, live outside their country of origin. That number is expected to grow to 230 million by 2050. (17)


• Labour or economic migrants are the world’s fastest growing group of migrants. (18)


• Environmental degradation, exacerbated by population pressure, is a factor in both internal and international migration.


• More migrants are moving from poorer to richer nations, with an annual average of 2.6 million people going in that direction, about half of them going to Northern America. (19)


• Women now constitute half of the international migrant population. (20)


• During 1990-2000, 34 of the 44 developed countries were net receivers of international migrants. In 28 of them, migration either prevented population decline or contributed to population growth. During 2005-2050, the net number of international migrants to developed countries is projected to be 98 million. (21)


• During 1990-2000, Asia was by far the largest source of migrants, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, then Africa. (22)


• Migrants send remittances to their countries of origin totaling at least $90 billion a year, more than the $60 billion developing nations receive in development assistance. (23)


• An estimated 10.4 million international migrants are refugees. People internally displaced within their own countries number 20 to 25 million; many of them are increasing the numbers of the urban poor. (24)

Population Ageing

• Population ageing is an inevitable consequence of fertility decline, especially if it is combined with increases in life expectancy.


• The international community now views population ageing as a major development challenge, especially in settings where there is limited institutional, human and financial capacity to meet the basic needs of older persons.


• During the next 45 years, the number of persons in the world aged 60 years or older is expected to almost triple, increasing from 672 million people in 2005 to nearly 1.9 billion by 2050. (25)


• Today 60 per cent of older persons live in developing countries; by 2050, that proportion will increase to 80 per cent. (26)


• In developed countries, one fifth of the population is 60 years or older; by 2050, that proportion is expected to rise to almost a third. In developing countries, the proportion of the older population is expected to rise from 8 per cent in 2005 to close to 20 per cent by 2050. (27)


• The number of 'oldest old' people, those who are 80 years old or over, will increase from 86 million in 2005 to 394 million in 2050. By 2050, most oldest-old people will live in the developing world. (28)


• In almost all societies, women represent the largest number and proportion of older people, even more so among the elderly. (29)


• Today, just 11 developed countries have a median age of over 40. But by 2050, 90 countries will fall into that group, 46 of them in the developing world. (30)


• Even as the global population ages, nearly half of all people today are under the age of 25—the largest youth generation in history. (31)

Urbanization

• In 2007, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population—3 billion people—will be living in cities. (32)


• During the next 25 years, the number of urban residents will increase by more than 2 billion people, while the rural population will decline by about 20 million. (33)


• By 2030, two thirds of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. More than 90 per cent of this urban population growth will be in developing countries, and by 2030, all regions of the world will have urban majorities. (34)


• Today there are 20 mega-cities of more than 10 million people, containing 4 per cent of the global population. By 2015, there will be 23 such mega-cities, 19 of them in developing countries. (35)


• About a third of world’s urban residents, some 1 billion people, dwell in slums. (36)


• Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of its urban population living in slums—nearly 72 per cent. (37)


• The largest number of slum dwellers, 554 million people, representing 60 per cent of the world’s total slum population, live in Asia, followed by Africa with 187 million (20 per cent) and Latin America and the Caribbean with 128 million (14 per cent). (38)


• By 2030, close to 1.7 billion people in low-income and middle-income countries will be living in urban slums. (39)

Environmental Sustainability

• More than 1 billion people lack clean water and more than 2.6 billion live without adequate sanitation. (40)


• Some 60 per cent of the world’s poor live in fragile and highly vulnerable areas—on arid and semi-arid lands, on steep slopes and in forests. (41)


• Long-term poverty reduction and sustainable growth can be undermined by the degradation of the natural resource base, scarcity and lack of access to water, and air pollution, which affect health and livelihoods.


• Population growth, along with high resource consumption by affluent populations, is contributing to increasing stress on the global environment.


• The bulk of future population growth will occur in the developing regions of the world least able to absorb it. Slowing and stabilizing population growth gives countries time to take steps that meet people’s needs yet protect the environment.


• Natural resources are conserved when individuals have the information and services they need to plan smaller, healthier families.


• 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 of consumption. (42)


• Women grow a substantial portion of the world’s food, and there is considerable evidence that their labour-intensive food production practices tend to be environmentally sound. (43)


• Appropriate and integrated social, population and sustainable development policies and programmes that empower the poorest people, especially women, will support a sustainable future.