Issue 18: July-August 2002

Efforts to improve human well-being and preserve the quality of the environment will fail unless population is placed at the core of the sustainable development agenda, according to an international group of experts co-organized by UN University.

"The Johannesburg Summit must heed the the first principle of the 1992 Rio Declaration – that 'human beings are at the centre of concern for sustainable development' – by taking full account of how population and society interact with the natural environment," said the Global Science Panel on Population and Environment, an independent body of experts organized by UNU, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.

In a letter, published in the July 4 issue of Nature magazine and co-signed by UNU Rector Hans van Ginkel, the panel said that sustainable development aims at improving human well-being, particularly through alleviating poverty, increasing gender equity, and improving health, human resources and stewardship of the natural environment. 

"Because demographic factors are closely linked to these goals, strategies that take population into account have a better chance of success." the panel's letter said. "Therefore, in Johannesburg, consideration of sustainable-development policies must include population growth and distribution, mobility, health impacts of environmental change, differential vulnerability, and the empowerment of people, especially of women."

The Global Science Panel on Population and Environment is preparing a comprehensive scientific assessment of the role of population in sustainable development strategies; the aim is produce substantive input to the Johannesburg Summit. The panel, which is under the joint patronage of Maurice Strong and Nafis Sadik, is made up of 30 distinguished scientists from relevant disciplines.

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