Building demographic factors into national policies for sustainable development

Demographic trends and factors are taken into account when formulating integrated national policies for environment and development.

Sustainability with respect to natural resource management has a solid economic underpinning. It implies maintaining the productivity of the resource base. In fact, it implies more. In precisely those countries where populations are rising more rapidly, the poorest, the relative importance of natural resources in total productive capital is greatest. If those larger populations are to be enabled to improve their standards of consumption, the productivity of the asset base must increase. Yet, in these same countries and others, a wide range of natural resources are becoming less productive through depletion and deterioration. There is also an issue of intergenerational equity. Is it fair to leave for a population that will inevitably be much larger (whatever to be much better off) a natural resource base that has been depleted and rendered significantly less productive than it is today?

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. International and regional scientific institutions would, on request, assist governments to include concerns for population/environment interactions at global, ecosystem and micro-levels in the training of demographers and population and environment specialists. Training would include research on links and ways to design integrated strategies.

The building by governments of demographic factors into national sustainable development policies will require at least US$ 90 million annually from international sources.