|
|
|
|
  |
 |
 |
 |
|  |
Bulletin LIAISON > LIAISON-Canada Electronic Newsletter #4 Ce document est disponible seulement en anglais.
Cities in a Changing World: UNFPA State of World Population Report Released just days before the start of the Habitat II conference in Istanbul, the message of the UN Population Fund’s State of World Population 1996 report is clear: it is time to start paying attention to our cities, because soon, that’s where most of us will be living. By the year 2006, says the report, over half the world’s population will live in urban areas. By 2015, more than 560 cities will have populations of over one million, compared to 83 in 1950 and 280 today. The vast majority of this rapid urban transformation is taking place in developing countries, which are in many ways least able to cope with the pressures of urbanization. "This transformation will create new possibilities for economic and social progress," says UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the report’s introduction, "but will also vastly increase the difficulties cities already face in providing adequate infrastructure, housing, employment and social services." As it has for the past several years, UNA-Canada organized the Canadian launch of the UNFPA report, which took place at Ottawa’s International Development Research Centre on May 29. In addition to outlining the many challenges faced by urbanizing nations, the UNFPA report also offers a prescription for easing the burden of rapidly-expanding cities. "A vital piece in solving the problems posed by rapid urbanization," said Michael Vlassoff, a Senior UNFPA Technical Officer who was in Ottawa to unveil this year’s report, "is the provision of reproductive health services, including family planning, to all people in urban areas, not just the well off." These services, he added, "must be of high quality, must provide options that cater to individuals’ needs, and must be imbedded in efforts to empower women in developing countries to become equal partners in socio-economic growth." In addition to pushing for greater investments in health, including reproductive health, the report also argues that increased investment in education, especially for women and girls, is imperative if life in the world’s cities is to be sustainable into the next century. Madonna Larbi, Executive Director of MATCH International Centre, an Ottawa-based agency working with women’s groups in the developing world, welcomed the report’s recognition that the full participation of women in the decision-making process is critical for sustainable development, both within cities and in rural areas. "Only with an educated and informed citizenry," she said, "where women play a critical role in defining public policy and in implementing these policies, will there be the prospect to improve the lives of the world’s population." In his comments, however, CIDA population specialist Henri Knoop questioned UNFPA’s "uncritical adoption" of the Programme of Action from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. He challenged the report’s argument that natural population increase, the biggest factor in urban population growth, can be controlled by progress in social development, in particular the empowerment of women. "Educating girls through high school will not necessarily bring a dramatic reduction in completed family size or in infant mortality," he said, "(and) there is as yet not empirical support for the assertion that women’s empowerment is universally necessary or sufficient for fertility or mortality decline."
In addition to the launch in Ottawa, UNA-Canada’s Vancouver branch also organized a launch of the report on May 30. Vancouver was host to the first Habitat Conference in 1976. For information on the Vancouver launch, see branch reports.
|
