Population dynamics have significant influence on sustainable development but the two have not always been seen as connected. ECSP’s Sandeep Bathala is in Rio de Janeiro for the landmark UN Conference on Sustainable Development to report on the efforts being made to integrate the two more closely.
Greetings from Rio de Janeiro! I will be blogging from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development throughout the week, tracking the inclusion of reproductive health and rights in the agenda.
Population dynamics have significant influence on sustainable development but the two have not always been seen as connected.
This year’s conference is the follow-on to the original UN Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992 (thus Rio+20). The resulting documents from that conference – Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests – were adopted by more than 178 governments and have done much to set the sustainable development agenda over the last two decades. Population dynamics were largely left off the table and instead were taken on separately, and in parallel, at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994.
This year, watchers from across the spectrum are eager to see these two issues talked about in a more integrated fashion. The official proceedings don’t start until the 20th, but side events have already begun.
Follow the conversation on ECSP’s blog, New Security Beat, and on Twitter: @NewSecurityBeat.
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The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental change, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. Read more
