UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
|
| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
|
**************************************************************************
This newsletter is being made available by the Population Information
Network (POPIN) of the United Nations Population Division (DESIPA), in
collaboration with Population Communication International. For further
information please contact Patrice_Newman@together.org
**************************************************************************
INTERNATIONAL DATELINE
A Population and Development News and Information Service
MAY WORLD POPULATION UPDATE:
5,774,700,000 (Population
Reference Bureau)
MAY 1996
TO HELP ILLUMINATE THE ISSUES OF THE UPCOMING JUNE 1996 "CITY
SUMMIT," the United Nations Population Division has released a new
publication called The Challenge of Urbanization: The World's Large
Cities. Scheduled to take place from June 3-14 in Istanbul, Turkey,
the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements--also known as
Habitat II--will focus on problems associated with managing rapid
urban growth and issues related to providing adequate shelter for all
the world's citizens.
THE CHALLENGE OF URBANIZATION IS A FASCINATING SKETCHBOOK OF 100
CITIES AROUND THE WORLD. In brief two- or three-page profiles, the
new publication paints vivid pictures of the world's cities,
including their historical origin; reasons for and patterns of
growth; past, present and future estimates of population growth and
density; infrastructure strengths and weaknesses, including
transportation, electricity and water supply; political forces at
play; current economic trends; and current distribution of wealth and
resources. Profiled are 18 cities in Africa, 29 in Asia, 24 in
Europe, 20 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 4 in North America,
and 5 in Oceania. A sample of the city profiles reveals a sobering
list of some of the issues facing city planners and administrators
around the world, including: inadequate or broken-down water supply
systems; water pollution and contamination; massive traffic
congestion; flawed building construction on a large scale; permanent
squatter settlements with no access to water, sewage or electrical
hook-ups; school over-crowding; industrial and automobile emissions;
large-scale poverty; governing disrupted by war; in-migration due to
war; unskilled labor forces; waste volume and disposal; and, in
almost all cases, skyrocketing population levels over the last
century, especially since 1950.
THE POPULATION OF MEXICO CITY NUMBERED 344,000 IN 1900,
BALLOONED TO 15.6 MILLION BY 1995, and is expected to reach 18.2
million by the year 2010--one of the most dramatic examples of urban
growth on the planet. The Indian city of Delhi grew from around
300,000 in the 1920s to some 9 million in 1991. Delhi's population
is expected to reach 13.5 million by the year 2000. Similarly,
Egyptians living in Cairo numbered approximately 600,000 at the end
of the 19th century and now number some 9 million, just a century
later. The Dhaka District in Bangladesh grew from 2.6 million people
in 1901 to some 12.4 million in 1988. Lima, Peru has grown from
973,000 in 1950 to 7.5 million in 1995. And Kinshasha, Zaire grew
from 173,000 in 1950 to an estimated 4.2 million in 1995. All of
these urban growth figures represent different combinations of
migration and population growth factors.
The 290-page book (Sales No. E.96.XIII.4) is available for US$29
from the Sales Section, United Nations Publications, New York or
Geneva; through major booksellers around the world; or through the
Director, Population Division, Department for Economic and Social
Information and Policy Analysis, United Nations, 2 United Nations
Plaza (Room DC2-1950), New York, NY 10017, United States.
* * * * *
IN BRIEF . . .
. . . CHLOROFLOUROCARBONS can be transformed into harmless minerals,
according to two chemists who say that their discovery means a
relatively simple, safe and inexpensive way to reduce or eliminate
stockpiles of the ozone-damaging chemicals. Robert Crabtree, a Yale
University professor, and Juan Burdeniuc, one of his graduate
students, pumped CFC gases through a glass tube packed with a
chemical found in rhubarb leaves--sodium oxalate. At just above
bread-baking temperature, the white powder converted CFCs into
graphite, table salt, carbon dioxide and sodium fluoride, an
ingredient found in toothpaste. Atmospheric chemist Mario Molina of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found it "remarkable that
[CFCs] can be destroyed in such a simple step, in one reaction."
U.S. companies alone--now banned from producing CFCs--have stockpiled
an estimated 100 million pounds of the gases.
(Earth Magazine, June 1996, New York)
. . . EXTRA CALCIUM in a pregnant woman's diet can substantially
lower her risk of both high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia--a
condition which can be fatal to both mother and baby. A study
conducted at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada found that in
women who consumed the equivalent of four servings per day of dairy
products, or 1,500 milligrams of calcium, the incidence of high blood
pressure was reduced by 70 percent and the incidence of pre-eclampsia
dropped by 62 percent. Pre-eclampsia is a leading cause of death in
pregnancy around the world.
(New York Times, 11 April 1996, Portland, Oregon)
. . . A GERMANY-BASED AIRLINE called LTU has started distributing
bags for tourists to collect the rubbish they generate during their
vacations in the Maldives. LTU then flies the rubbish back to
Germany. It is estimated that 200 tons of rubbish will be collected
and returned this way annually. (Habitat Debate, November 1995,
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements)
. . . MANATEES have been dying en masse around the Florida coast of
the United States. So far this year, 224 of the gentle sea mammals
have been found dead, and 128 of those cases have been attributed to
a mysterious ailment that is confined to Florida's southwest coast.
Some scientists believe that the deaths are related to the presence
of red tide, a toxic microorganism that could contaminate the sea
grasses that make up a large part of the manatee diet. But they also
say an unknown virus could be involved. Whatever the cause, many
scientists agree that the species cannot tolerate any more natural
or man-made threats. According to Dr. Gregory Bossart, chief
veterinarian at the Miami Seaquarium, "...man has so compromised the
health of the species already that any natural mortality is
unacceptable for the health and well-being as a whole." The recent
spurt of deaths equaled some eight percent of the known wild
population of roughly 2,600.
(New York Times, 11 April 1996, Miami, Florida)
. . . A BUY-GREEN CAMPAIGN is being promoted by environmentalists and
commercial businesses in an effort to promote the sustainable
extraction of timber from the world's forests. The unusual alliance
links the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) with more than 50 private
enterprises, including such household-name businesses that are
significant marketers of forest products as Britain's J. Sainsbury
supermarket chain and Boots the Chemist; Home Depot in the United
States; and Sweden-based Ikea, the international retailer of
household-furnishings. The approach has also been copied in Belgium.
Under the program, participating companies sign a pledge to buy only
wood products certified as produced from timber harvested in
environment-friendly circumstances and bearing a label to that
effect. The label is underwritten by the Forest Stewardship Council,
an international certification organization.
(Financial Times, 13 September 1995, London)
* * * * *
THE RAPIDLY DIMINISHING AQUIFER LYING BENEATH MEXICO CITY POSES
A BIGGER THREAT TO THE CITY'S FUTURE than the polluted skies
overhead, according to Leslie Crawford of London's Financial Times.
And between Mexico's current financial crisis and the disastrous
political implications of using meters to charge people for water
use, Crawford says that long-term solutions to the two-fold problem
are nowhere in sight. Crawford notes that the aquifer is the main
source of water for Mexico City's 16 million people, causing both its
rapid depletion as a water source and a gradual sinking of the city
floor--approximately 50cm a decade, but more severe in specific
areas. Such sinking exacerbates the city's natural propensity to
flood. Crawford also says that scientists have begun to detect
dangerous cracks in the clay sediments that make up the valley floor.
These, she says, threaten to contaminate the aquifer, lying only 100
meters below the city's surface. Two-third's of the Mexican
capital's water needs are currently drawn from the aquifer, writes
Crawford, while the remaining third must be pumped from dams 120km
away and up a steep grade to reach the metropolis--requiring enough
electricity every day to supply a medium-sized town.
EVEN THE MOST CONSERVATIVE STUDIES ESTIMATE THAT 30 PERCENT OF
MEXICO CITY'S WATER IS LOST THROUGH LEAKAGES AND THEFT. But
implementation of a 1993 master plan to prepare a water users'
census, install hundreds of thousands of electronic meters, map out
the city's 12,000km of pipes and repair them has been frustrated by
ongoing political and financial crises. Crawford says that depending
on the trickle of funds from the water authority's budget,
intermittent work has begun on installing meters and mapping the pipe
network. But the main work of repairing the pipes to stem water loss
has been completely stalled by bureaucratic delays and budget cuts.
Presently, Crawford writes, about half of the capital's inhabitants
do not pay for their water, while the rest pay a flat tariff based
on meters read only once every three years. According to Alfonso
Martinez Baca, head of Mexico City's water authority, alternative
sources of water must be found to replace what is now drawn from the
depleted aquifer. And besides the planning and maintenance needs of
the water supply system, Martinez says that the city needs at least
four new sewage treatment and water recycling plants--and at least
US$1 billion of unavailable financing to build them.
(Financial Times, 10 March 1996, Mexico City)
* * * * *
TWO RECENT PUBLICATIONS TAKE DIFFERENT TACKS TOWARDS ENCOURAGING
FOLLOW-UP ACTION on some of this decades's international United
Nations conferences. One publication highlights commitments made at
several of the mega-conferences while the other tracks how much 53
countries have accomplished related to the 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo.
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All: Framework for
Action, produced by New York-based Family Care International (FCI),
provides governments with selected text from conference action plans,
but displays the information in clearly organized segments that
highlight both background information and commitments on each issue.
The text of the Framework for Action is drawn from the plans agreed
to at four of the recent conferences: the Women's Conference in
Beijing, the Social Summit in Copenhagen, the Cairo population
conference, and the Human Rights Conference in Vienna, as well as
from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Sections
of what FCI says is "a coherent guideline for national
implementation" focus on such issues as: promoting the equal rights
of girls and women; mobilizing technical and financial resources;
mobilizing public awareness; eliminating all forms of violence
against women, youth and children; encouraging male participation and
shared responsibilities; and family planning. Each section is
divided into clear sub-headings to place the text into more specific
contexts such as: goals; public information and education; policy and
law; training, and services.
NATIONAL FOLLOW-UP ACTION ON THE CAIRO PROGRAM OF ACTION is the
focus of One Year After Cairo: Assessing National Action to Implement
the International Conference on Population and Development. Co-
produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earth Summit
Watch, and the Women's Environment and Development Organization, One
Year After Cairo presents a country-by-country survey of national
actions taken so far to implement the ICPD Program of Action. The
authors note that the 53 national reports represent only 30 percent
of countries that participated in the ICPD, observing with dismay
that in many countries it was often "impossible to even identify an
official or agency responsible" for implementing the ICPD plan. This
theme of a few positive steps alongside a mountain of apathy also
runs through the 53 reports One Year After Cairo's authors were able
to obtain. In 40 percent of the nations reporting, "the head of the
national ICPD delegation or key members made formal presentations to
the national legislature on return from the conference." And the
authors note that nine countries have formed or initiated new
organizations to oversee work related to ICPD, many of which focus
on women's education and empowerment as well as health and
reproduction. But on the negative side, the authors write that "less
than one-quarter of the reports reflect ministerial or otherwise
high-level governmental consideration of ICPD implementation."
THIRTY PERCENT OF THE 53 COUNTRIES REPORTING ON CAIRO FOLLOW-UP
HAVE INCREASED SPENDING OR MAINTAINED HIGH LEVELS OF SUPPORT for
reproductive health, primary health care, social sector programs or
foreign assistance, reports One Year After Cairo. For example, the
book notes that Antigua and Barbuda, Pakistan, South Africa and
Thailand all have plans to increase spending on reproductive health
and/or girls' and women's education. In the foreign assistance
category, Japan, England, Ireland and the European Union score points
for increasing population-related development assistance in 1995.
But the United States and Canada, among others, have decreased
spending on both domestic programs and international development
assistance. The report also notes that a few nations have begun to
respond to the ICPD's call for changes in wasteful and polluting
patterns of production and consumption. Germany has located its ICPD
follow-up program within their Interior Ministry; Norway has held two
international ministerial conferences on sustainable consumption; and
the Netherlands has created a comprehensive green plan to guide a
shift towards more sustainable consumption patterns.
Commitments to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All:
Framework for Action is available in English, French and Spanish.
For single copies or more information, contact: Family Care
International, 588 Broadway, Suite 503, New York, NY 10012, USA.
Phone: 212-941-5300; Fax: 212-941-5563; e-mail:
<fci@chelsea.ios.com>. Multiple copies cost US$2.00 each.
Information on obtaining copies of One Year After Cairo:
Assessing National Action to Implement the International Conference
on Population and Development is available from: NRDC Publications,
40 West 20th St., New York, NY 10011. Phone: 212-727-2700; Fax:
212-727-1773. The full text is available on the World Wide Web
(http://www.intr.net/esw/cairo) and the WEDO Econet Gopher
(gopher.igc.apc.org).
* * * * *
ASIA IS SOON LIKELY TO OVERTAKE AFRICA AS THE EPICENTER OF THE
AIDS PANDEMIC, with ignorance and religious opposition sharing the
blame, health experts predict. Because of these two factors, AIDS
and HIV are expected to multiply faster in Asia, which already
registers several million cases, than in any other region. The World
Health Organization (WHO) pinpoints India and Thailand as showing the
most alarming increases. In India, the number of AIDS cases is
projected at a million in less than five years at the present rate
of infection. There are already 200,000 AIDS cases among Bombay
prostitutes, and the rate is rising among prostitutes in Vietnam,
Burma, Cambodia and the Philippines. WHO predicts that globally, 40
million people will be infected with HIV by the end of the century.
IGNORANCE ABOUT THE CAUSES OF AIDS AND HIV IS A MAJOR REASON
that the virus is spreading at a wildfire pace. The lack of
knowledge is rooted in not only religious and cultural opposition but
in the inability of many poor-country governments to afford the cost
of launching and sustaining an effective anti-infection campaign.
And for purely political reasons, governments are often intimidated
by powerful religious opposition to sex education. In Malaysia, for
example, HIV cases doubled in the single year 1993-94; yet the
leaders of the nation's Muslim majority oppose the use of condoms and
the teaching of children about sex. In the Philippines, which health
officials say is on the verge of an AIDS explosion, it is the Roman
Catholic hierarchy that is sabotaging the government's campaign
promoting the use of condoms. On the other hand, Thailand's
aggressive campaign promoting condoms has been so effective that
health officials have dramatically reduced the once-projected rate
of HIV infection. (Globe and Mail, 14 September 1995, Toronto,
Canada).
* * * * *
THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON WOMEN'S SEXUALITY AND SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT is explored in an essay by an American professor of
religious studies. Professor Christine E. Gudorf of Florida
International University participated in the 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, as one of
the religion consultants who performed a double function. One, she
says, was to remind the conference that the important role religion
plays in population and development issues must not be ignored. The
other was to indicate the degree of support that religions give to
managing population growth and to the concept of equality of the
sexes--support that varies from religion to religion and even within
the same religion. The consultants, who tended to counterbalance the
policies of both conventional and fundamentalist Catholic and Islamic
groups, generally support family planning, contraception and--to
varying degrees--abortion. However, Gudorf argues, religious
doctrines are by no means the sole barrier to the empowerment of
women. She says that while local religion may condone many
discriminatory practices, culture or ignorance often dictate behavior
more than religious doctrine. Gudorf says that such secularly-rooted
prejudices include dowries, arranged child marriages, bride pricing,
sex-selective abortion and female genital mutilation.
CITING SPECIFIC CASES, GUDORF POINTS TO BUDDHISM'S STRICTURE on
killing and its respect-of-life teachings. Yet, she says, female
infanticide and abortion were relatively common in Japan "until the
last half of the 20th century." Similarly, in violation of the
teachings of Confucius, female infanticide continues in many rural
areas of China, prompted by son-preference and the Communist
government's one-child policy. Of genital mutilation, the professor
says that contrary to popular misconception, the practice did not
originate with Islam. In fact, she says, it is not practiced at all
in some countries where Islam remains a powerful influence, including
Saudi Arabia, the wellspring of the religion. Rather, she concludes,
female mutilation is practiced in Africa not only among converts to
Islam but in tribal and even Catholic societies.
ALMOST ALL RELIGIONS REGARD WOMEN'S RIGHTS AS SECONDARY to what
they considered to be a female's primary function: child-bearing and
child-rearing, says Gudorf. To maintain control, she says, such
religions severely restrict a woman's decision-making, most
effectively by dictating the reproductive process. Two notable cases
are the ban on contraception and abortion, as dictated by ultra-
conservative Roman Catholicism, Islamic fundamentalism and the dogma
of some other religions. Control is maintained further by fostering
the sanctity of marriage and the family at the expense of other
options--a career, for example--that a woman might choose. In 1992,
inflation in Poland had plunged child support for single mothers to
the equivalent of 50 U.S. cents a month. To compensate, a bill was
introduced in Parliament to index payment to a more humane and
realistic sum. But the bill was lobbied to defeat by Polish bishops:
they argued that it opposed Catholic teaching because it would have
the effect of supporting and rewarding divorce.
(Conscience, Spring/Summer 1995, Catholics for a Free Choice,
Washington)
* * * * *
WITH PROSPECTIVE BRIDES AS THE LURE, THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT IS
COAXING WOULD-BE HUSBANDS away from the crowded, polluted city as
pioneers to settle and populate the vast emptiness of the Egyptian
Sahara. In one program, the government has given each qualified
unmarried women five acres of desert land, a house, and a monthly
salary--a kind of dowry that the government hopes will draw men out
of the fertile but desperately overpopulated Nile valley. Other
government programs share the same goal. Millions of dollars are
being allocated to the construction of urban centers in the desert,
to wooing private investment industries to Egypt and, along the Red
Sea coast, to promoting holiday resorts to attract tourists. Under
another program started in 1981, high school and university graduates
were given land, a house, financial and food assistance and the
infrastructure necessary to start farms. Some 35,000 graduates,
mostly men, now farm 175,000 acres of reclaimed desert land. Of
3,200 women participating, about half have married.
ALTHOUGH SOME SAY THEIR FARMS ARE PROFITABLE, there are both
social and financial constraints that defeat some would-be pioneers.
As one mother of two described conditions at the start: "There were
no trees, only houses. Everything was yellow...just desert." Many
graduates have given up because they were underfunded to survive the
start-up period. Even an official of the New Communities Ministry
in Cairo conceded: "If you consider the size of the population living
in these areas, we can't say we have succeeded." Nevertheless, the
government continues to plow the desert to solve some of its most
daunting problems: urban overpopulation, unemployment and overworked
agricultural land. About 99 percent of Egypt's 58 million people
live in the 25,000 square miles of rich agricultural land along the
Nile. But that strip constitutes only 4 percent of the nation's
territory.
(Christian Science Monitor, 21 April 1995, Boston, USA)
* * * * *
WASTE, ONE OF THE MOST POLLUTING AND COSTLY BY-PRODUCTS OF A
THROW-AWAY SOCIETY, is becoming the source for lucrative raw
materials in the U.S. and Canada, where recycling is becoming an
income-producing industry. In the 1980s, recycling was a barely-
tolerated act of good citizenship. Then, as dump sites filled and
incineration became more costly and contaminating, alternative
disposal methods for municipal trash became a burdensome necessity.
Today, paper, plastics and metals and other household and industrial
disposables are scarcely able to satisfy the demands of the recycling
industry which, a San Francisco recycling director says, brings the
city "unprecedented revenue." He says the income generated has
allowed the municipality to reduce household assessments for the
collection and disposal program. Meanwhile, the demand for
convertible waste materials has rocketed across the United States.
In Madison, Wisconsin, processors now pay US$23 a ton for recyclables
that scarcely two years earlier cost the city $13 a ton have removed.
From the sales, the city earned $240,000--not including collection--
in the first four months of 1994. In Canada, participating
communities in the province of Ontario are earning profits of 50
Canadian dollars per ton on recycling--including collection,
processing, and capital costs. The director of New York City's
recycling program suggested that other municipalities could benefit
if they would stop acting like garbage collectors and realize that
they are in the business of selling commodities.
TO CONSUMERS, RECYCLED PAPER PRODUCTS ARE PERHAPS THE MOST FAMILIAR
end product of waste conversion. The recycled paper industry--the
primary consumer of used newsprint--produces everything from
industrial cardboard boxes and cereal packages to magazines and
holiday greeting cards. The American Forest & Paper Association, the
main trade group of the paper industry, estimates that the United
States recycled more than 40 percent of the paper it used in 1994.
Of that amount, 80 percent was recovered from post-consumer waste and
the remainder from scrap from paper mills and printing plants. The
trade group once resisted recycling, but now estimates that its
members will invest a total of US$10 billion in that side of the
industry by the end of the 1990s. Not all recyclables are consumed
where they are produced: China has been importing used plastic soft-
drink bottles and converting the polymers they contain into new
synthetic fibers for jackets and other garments.
(World Watch, July/August 1995, Washington)
* * * * *
DECLARED DEAD IN 1970, THE RHINE RIVER IS COMING BACK TO LIFE
under an emergency rescue project launched in 1986. Last November,
a group of French biologists found that salmon and sea trout had
returned to the upper Rhine for the first time in 50 years. It took
a 1986 fire in a Swiss chemical factory which sent toxic pesticides
flowing into the Rhine along with the water used to extinguish the
flames to get Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Germany and the
Netherlands to stop bickering and finger-pointing and produce a plan
for serious action. The program drawn up by the International
Commission for the protection of the Rhine--approved unanimously by
the five governments--features several key goals: slashing the
discharge of noxious substances into the river by 50 percent;
establishing a riverwide alert system and rigid safety precautions
to prevent the dumping of toxins; and restoring the Rhine's original
flora and fauna. So far, lead, mercury and dioxin levels have been
cut by 70 percent and chrome, nickel and other poisonous heavy metals
have declined by half. But experts say that nitrogen and phosphorous
concentrations are still too high because of the large amounts of
fertilizers and pesticides that drain from farms into the river.
About one-third of all nitrogen discharged into the North Sea comes
from the Rhine. (Guardian Weekly, 14 April 1996, Strasbourg, France)
* * * * *
Attention Readers: PCI has a number of extra copies of the final
report on NGO Forum '94, the NGO event that took place alongside the
1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
If you would like a copy of the report, which includes English,
French, Spanish and Arabic text and a 112-page list of international
participants, please write to Megan McCarthy at PCI at the below-
listed address (e-mail: <megan_mccarthy@together.org>).
Correction: On p. 2 of the March issue of Dateline, there is an
error in paragraph 3. The fifth sentence in that paragraph should
read: "And by the 2025, almost two-thirds of the world's population
will be urban dwellers."
* * * * *
NGO SUPPLEMENT May 1996
For and About NGOs and their Work
THE HABITAT II CONFERENCE, COMING UP THIS JUNE IN ISTANBUL, WAS
THE THEME OF THIS YEAR'S POPULATION CONSULTATION, an annual New York
event for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to focus on
population-related issues. The morning's keynote address was given
by Aliye P. Celik, Director of the New York Habitat office. Celik
said that factors related to rapid urbanization are "some of the most
neglected problems of our day," adding that cities all over the world
are suffering from the "fallout of growth." On a large scale, Celik
said, we are "woefully unprepared for becoming an urban planet,"
noting that the problems presented by urbanization contain "few of
the characteristics normally associated with international crises."
Celik pointed out that over the next few years, most of humanity will
be living in cities already unable to cope with their current
inhabitants. Some of the pressing urban issues she itemized
included: pollution, social conflict, poverty--including the
feminization of poverty, stress on families, homelessness, crime and
violence, water supply issues--including waterborne diseases, traffic
congestion, and fiscal crises that "reduce city agencies to impotence
and insolvency."
THE HOUSING SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES, ESPECIALLY NEW YORK
CITY, CAME UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF PROFESSOR PETER MARCUSE of Columbia
University at the NGO Population Consultation. Outlining four points
in his discussion, Marcuse said that there is a serious housing
problem in the United States; that it does not affect everyone
equally; that the gaps in housing opportunities create segregation
and inequality issues that need to be addressed; and that the
government not only fails to address the problem, but often actually
gets in the way. Marcuse noted that a 1993 survey showed that 25
percent of New York City's population falls under the poverty line--a
shameful figure, he said, for a global city in one of the world's
richest countries. Marcuse said that overcrowding, very low vacancy
rates (3.4 percent) for low-income housing, and the need for the poor
to spend up to 60 percent of their income on housing are all both
causes and symptoms of segregation, ghettoization, and polarization
that need to be addressed in a standardized way. Marcuse pointed out
that such differentiation in housing conditions and the impact of
poor distribution between rich and poor "are not coming up in the
Habitat discussions," adding that in U.S cities, the concentration
of poverty has increased from around 5 percent in 1970 to 11 percent
in 1990. And, Marcuse said, such concentrated poverty exacerbates
many separate problems such as health, social and environmental
issues.
MARCUSE CONCLUDED BY CALLING ATTENTION TO THE OBSTRUCTIVE ROLE
THE U.S. HAS SO FAR PLAYED IN THE HABITAT II PROCESS. At issue is
the phrase "the right to housing" and the U.S. objection to that
abstract concept. Marcuse wondered out loud about this overly
literal interpretation of the principle of governments around the
world "trying" to provide adequate housing for all, noting that the
U.S. is interpreting the language as a legal mandate for governments
to provide housing for all. Marcuse called the U.S. position
"scandalous."
NGOs AROUND THE WORLD ARE ACTING AS CONTACTS FOR THE HABITAT
CONFERENCE:
For Anglophone and Lusophone Africa: Mazingira Institute, P.O.Box
14550, Nairobi, KENYA. Phone: 254-2-443219/443226; Fax: 254-2-
444643; e-mail: mazingira@elci.gn.apc.org
For Francophone/North Africa: Malik Gaye, ENDA/RUP, BP 3370, Dakar,
SENEGAL. Phone: 221-22 42 29; Fax: 221-222695; e-mail:
endadakar@gn.apc.org
For Asia, except India: Somsook Boonyabancha, Asian Coalition for
Housing Rights, P.O. Box 24-74, Bangkok, THAILAND. Phone:
For India: Minar Pimple, YUVA, Flat NO. 117, Dr Baliga Nagar, Jasmin
Mill Road, Mahim (East) Bombay, 400017, INDIA. Phone: 91-22-
4070623/4143498; Fax: 91-22-4135314/3853139; e-mail:
yuva@inbb.gn.apc.org
For Europe: HIC Europe Habitat et Participation, Place du Levant B-
1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, BELGIUM. Phone: (3210) 472 314; Fax 32-10-
474544.
For Latin America: FEDEVIVIENDA, Avenida 39 No. 14-45, Apartado Aerea
57059, Bogota, DC, COLOMBIA. Phone: 57-1-245 3443; Fax: 57-1-287
1941; e-mail: fede@colnodo.apc.org
For Global Secretariat and Canada: Rooftops Canada, 2 Berkeley
Street, Suite 207, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5A 2W3. Phone: 416 366-
1445; Fax: 416 366-3876; e-mailL rooftops@web.apc.org
For USA and Habitat & Environment SubCommittee: Peter Friedland,
Center to Prevent and End Homelessness, 218 State St., Northhampton,
MA 01060, USA. Phone: 413 586-1045; Fax: 413 584-1987; e-mail:
pfriedland@igc.apc.org
Habitat International Coalition Secretariat: Cordobanes No. 24, Col.
San Jos‚ Insurgentes 03900, Mexico, D.F., MEXICO. Phone: 525-651-
6807; Fax: 525-593-5194.
(15th Annual Population Consultation, 30 April 1996, New York;
NGO News on Human Settlements, 1995 No. 1, Habitat II Global NGO
Secretariat, Toronto)
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A NEW INTERNATIONAL NGO FOCUSING ON THE PLIGHT OF WIDOWS around
the world is one offshoot of the NGO Forum that accompanied the
September 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in China. Empowering
Widows in Development (EWD) will link the many local NGOs that have
sprung up to promote the fundamental human rights of widows,
including rights to life, shelter, food, health and livelihood. The
NGO Forum workshop which gave rise to the EWD initiative followed an
international conference which dealt with the causes and consequences
of the extreme marginalization, poverty and vulnerability of widows
and their children in law, religion, traditions and society. One
presentation at that conference pointed out ways in which the Women's
Convention (CEDAW) could be used to protect widows and their property
and encourage acknowledgement of their economic contributions to
their communities.
All interested should contact: Margaret Owen, 36 Faroe Road,
London W14 OEP, United Kingdom; e-mail: 100066.1321@compuserve.com
(People & the Planet, Volume 5 Number 1 1996, United Nations
Population Fund, the World Conservation Union, the World Wide
Fund for Nature, and the International Planned Parenthood
Federation, London)
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