Southpac News

The Millennium of Choice!

One or another of our Pacific Islands will be the first to witness the dawn of the new millennium. The previous issue of this bulletin (Vol. 7, No. 1, June 1999) gave advance notice of the world’s population reaching 6 billion come 12 October 1999. Evidently demographic dynamics in the Pacific island countries will have important implications for these countries’ ability to realize sustainable development in the new millennium. Countries now accept that population concerns are at the heart of sustainable development strategies.

But after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in 1994, population concerns have broadened beyond the old concept of "population control". So, as we enter the new millennium, population programmes are in a state of transition. "Choice" is the underlying concept of the new generation of population programmes inspired by the values and principles of the ICPD Programme of Action.

In most cases high fertility and rapid population growth impede social and economic development. They also help to perpetuate poverty. Slower population growth aids development; it also helps to protect the environment. Hence, family planning benefits individuals and countries.

But the concept of "choice" in the new population and development paradigm is borne out of 30 years of experience that most women, given the choice, will have fewer children than their mothers did. Yet, choice requires access to reproductive health care.

Broader Programmes Beyond Family Planning

Evidently, in the transition to the new generation of population programmes, population concerns beyond the confines of traditional family planning will figure significantly, depending on the particular national context and the resources available. Among the broader concerns in the post-ICPD period, one would expect the following differences from population programmes in the previous two decades. (See Table below).

Population and Development Linkages

Many development managers believe that the ICPD-PoA requires that the issue of population should be viewed in the context of sustainable development concerns. In this holistic paradigm, the alleviation of poverty, social development, environmental degradation, the status of women, education, employment, youth and adolescents, ageing, migration and a host of other development issues and linkages need to receive the attention of population programmes and their managers. Indeed, in the new generation of population programmes, the development of new institutional and infrastructural capacity and the improvement of managerial practices will be the critical ingredients for success.

Contrary to those who see that the job has been done because of the worldwide decline in fertility, we view the problem as continuing and, indeed, requiring renewed commitment to achieve population stability and sustainability of the quality of life. Consider that:

• Of the world's 6 billion people, more than 1 billion are teenagers;
• More than 95% of those teens live in less-developed nations;
• The world must somehow provide for 78 million more people every year for another generation;
• One in 7 people in the world does not have enough to eat; and
• A fifth of the 4.4 billion people in developing nations have no access to modern health services, including reproductive health care.

There is, clearly, still much to do. The recent ICPD+5 review process showed that the ICPD approach has taken hold and generated much momentum. Government policies are changing and national programmes are being redesigned to reflect the ICPD PoA. To reach the ambitious goals of the ICPD, participating governments agreed to increase spending on population and related programmes to $17 billion a year by 2000, increasing to $22 billion by 2015. How optimistic is this funding scenario?

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