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population growth rates, especially in regions such as Africa, where these rates are increasing.
51. Birth rates declined in industrial countries largely because at economic and social development. Rising levels or income and urbanization and the changing role or women all played important roles. Similar processes are now at work in developing countries. These should be recognized and encouraged. Population policies should be integrated with other economic and social development programmes – female education, health care, and the expansion of the livelihood base of the poor. But time is short, and developing countries will also have to promote direct measures to reduce fertility, to avoid going radically beyond the productive potential to support their populations. In fact, increased access to family planning services is itself a form of social development that allows couples, and women in particular, the right to self-determination.
52. Population growth in developing countries will remain unevenly distributed between rural and urban areas. UN projections suggest that by the first decade or the next century, the absolute size or rural populations in most developing countries will start-de-lining. Nearly 90 per cent of the increase in the developing world will take place in urban areas, the population or which in expected to rise from 1.15 billion in 1985 to 3.25 billion in 2025.[1] The increase will be particularly marked in Africa and to a lesser extent, in Asia.
53. Developing-country cities are growing much faster than the capacity of authorities to cope. Shortages or housing, water. sanitation, and mass transit are widespread. A growing proportion of city-dwellers live in slums and shanty towns, many of them exposed to air and water pollution and to industrial and natural hazards. Further deterioration is likely, given that most urban growth will take place in the largest cities. Thus more manageable cities may be the principal gain from slower rates or population growth.
54. Urbanization is itself part or the development process. The challenge is to manage the process so as to avoid a severe deterioration in the quality of life. Thus the development of smaller urban centres needs to be encouraged to reduce pressures in large cities. solving the impending urban crisis will require the promotion of self-help housing and urban service by and for the poor, and a more positive approach to the role or the informal sector, supported by sufficient funds for water supply, sanitation, and other services. See Chapter 9.
5. Conserving and Enhancing the Resource Base
55. It needs are to be pier on a sustainable basis the Earth's natural resource base must be conserved and enhanced. Major changes in policies will he needed to cope with the industrial world's current high levels or consumption, the increases in consumption needed to meet minimum standards in developing countries, and expected population growth. However, the case for
the conservation or nature should not rest only with development
- ↑ Ibid.
