Press Release No. 19/1997

African Population Commission Focuses on Policies and Practice

Addis Ababa, 16 June 1997: Aware of the nexus relationship between population, food production, environment and development, African population experts gathered at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Monday under the umbrella of the second General Assembly of the African Population Commission (APC), to take stock of Africa population policies in the wake of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

APC met for the first time in Addis Ababa in 1994 to promote cooperation among African countries in the field of development and population activities following the 1992 Dakar/Ngor Declaration (DND) of African Heads of State and Government which set the course for regional policies by integrating population into the fabric of economic growth and sustainable development.

K.Y. Amoako, UN under Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ECA, in a keynote address read on his behalf at the opening ceremony of the 3-day meeting, highlighted some of the problems facing the region in its pursuit of successful population policies:

• unfavourable socio-cultural practices and attitudes;
• persistence of the socio-economic crisis;
• low degree of commitment by political and religious leaders to make the right mix of choices in population policies
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According to Assistant Secretary General Vijay S. Makhan of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Africa's population is expected to reach 850 million by the end of the century and to more than double to "reach the staggering figure of 1.6 billion by the year 2050".

Mr. Makhan went on to note that Africa is faced with the prospect of feeding an additional 15 to 20 million people a year, creating 200 million jobs by the year 2000 and the provision of educational opportunities for 137 million children within the same time-span.

The urgency of viable population policies is underlined by the growing demand for increased urban services such as water, sewerage, transport, health and housing all of which are in short supply throughout the continent.

On development and implementation of population policies and programmes, evaluated by ECA with DND/ICPD recommendations as a benchmark, 20 out of 31 responding countries have adopted a National Population Policy (NPP). If the draft NPP of South Africa (to have been adopted early 1997) and that of Rwanda (adopted in 1992 but subsequently suspended to be revised and updated) are added, 71 percent of respondents are on the right track.

A technical committee that preceded the meeting noted, however: "This spreading pattern improves the prospects for integrating population variables in economic-socio planning, but these have been increasingly limited in Africa by the decline of medium- and long term planning".

In order to arrest this planning decline, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recommended that African countries should prepare National Long Term Perspective Studies (NLTPSs) that will enable them to base their decision-making on a range of national development objectives, policies and strategies.

Only six countries (Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Zambia) have reported implementation, while seven others (Guinea, Ghana, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Swaziland, Mauritania and Burkina Faso) are mid-way through the process.

"We must recognize that population factors are vital determinants of the success of actions to promote agricultural growth and overall economic growth, the provision of health and educational facilities, the equal status of women, to alleviate poverty and to protect the environment (the natural resource base) on which everything else depends", Mr Amoako noted in his address.

The meeting, attended by top policy makers from around the continent, has a busy agenda that includes a review of population policies and programmes, decentralization of population programmes and the way froward towards the integration of population factors in African development plans.

The assembly reconfirmed the current bureau in office, only replacing Swaziland

with South Africa:

• Nigeria: Chairman
• Ethiopia: First Vice-Chairman
• Cameroon: second Vice-Chairman
• South Africa: 3rd Vice-Chairman
• Tunisia: Rapporteur