Issue
January to March 2000

- Mr. Wanmuhamadnoor Matha, President of the National Assembly of Thailand

The 16th Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association of Japan (APDA) in cooperation with the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and was attended by more than 70 parliamentarians from 23 countries, parliament staff and representatives from the United Nations.

-Mr. Shin Sakurai, MP

Mr. Shin Sakurai, MP (Japan) and the Chairman of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), in his address at the Opening Session, praised the contribution to the Asian Forum of Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn, who would be retiring from the Senate. He said that among the original members of the AFPPD, Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn is the only person who has continued to actively contribute to the activities of the AFPPD. "Dear Dr. Prasop, please accept this expression of our most sincere gratitude for all you have given."

He also expressed his disappointment that Dr. Hirofumi Ando, who has unfailing rendered advice to the AFPPD since its inception, has retired from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as its Deputy Executive Director. He also took the opportunity to welcome Mr. Kunio Waki, Dr. Ando’s successor whose prior service was with UNICEF and other UN agencies. He hoped that Mr. Waki, as the new Deputy executive Director of UNFPA, will continue to support the AFPPD and its much-needed activities on population and development in order for parliamentarians to serve their constituencies better.

Mr. Sakurai referred to the issue of globalization that, if well managed, the globalization may enable us to reduce the pressures on the global environment even as the population continues to grow. However, the global economy as we know it today is increasing to put pressure on the global environment. In the global economy the farmers of the world are forced under economic rationale to produce products that sell and are not necessarily the best in terms of environment or ecological conditions. In pursuit of short-term profits they put pressure on the environment destroying the basic environment necessary for sustained agricultural production. The trend of globalization does not stop at economy. It applies to the field of security. Problems of a country is no longer the problems solely of the country. This trend is likely to accelerate in the next century. Globalization has created a unipolarity in which everything concentrates in the most powerful country.

The population issues lie at the bottom of all global problems. To solve the problems and realize sustainable development to build a bright future, Mr. Sakurai is convinced that politicians have a big role to play.

- Dr. Taro Nakayama

Dr. Taro Nakayama, MP (Japan) and Chairman of the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) in his presidential address, pointed out that today the population problems mean different things to different countries. On the one hand, countries such as Japan must cope with problems arising from their extremely small number of births and rapid increase of aged population, while on the other hand, there are countries that continue to suffer from the rapid increase of population. It means that we must make greater efforts in the future. We have no choice but to address the specific characteristics of each country and solve the problems one by one. He emphasized that we must change our thinking. Based on the common perception that our resources are finite, we must collaborate to build new ethics and a new system. In conclusion, he said, we, politicians, must form the global and long-term perspective of ensuring the future of mankind and the sustainability of the earth’s resources, and propose new ethical standards and systems that will ensure a bright future. Our political will is more important today than at any other time.

Future of Asia in parliamentarians’ hands

- Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn

Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn, Secretary General of the Asian Forum of Parlia-mentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), in his welcome speech, said that the future of Asia’s economic development and well being of individual human-beings is now in the hands of parliamentarians. If they decide not to do any-thing in the field of population and development, we can all predict what the future of greater Asia would be. He also provided the information on the development and progress of parliamentarians’ activities worldwide and the role played by the AFPPD.

-Mr. Kunio Waki

Mr. Kunio Waki, the newly appointed Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in his statement at the Opening Session, acknowledged the important support provided by the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) under the leadership of Mr. Sakurai. He said that "I am personally grateful to you for the support on current population and development issues in Asia. I sincerely hope to be able to follow the footsteps of Dr. Ando and Mr. Salas, and continue the good tradition of cooperation between UNFPA and parliamentarians.

Mr. Waki said that the role of parliamentarians in advocating for, creating awareness on population and gender issues, mobilizing resources and enacting appropriate legislation for population issues is as crucial today as it was two decades ago.

Parliamentarians through the AFPPD and its sister organizations in Africa, Latin America and other regions have been on the forefront to discuss new and emerging population and development issues.

Thanking all parliamentarians who have been involved in these activities, Mr. Waki said that it requires a personal commitment, as shown by parliamentarians, to raise population issues which are sometimes sensitive political issues, but are a key to sustainable human development and global peace. "Without your continued commitment and hard work, we would not have been able to move forward as reflected in the ICPD+5 Review, without your commitment we will not be able to meet the many challenges ahead. We count on your continued leadership in improving the well-being of people throughout the world."

-Dr. Hirofumi Ando

Dr. Hirofumi Ando, former Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in his Keynote Address, referred to a mission of American and Japanese parliamentarians to observe population issues in Asian countries in 1973.

He said that Asian parliamentarians, in particular, were pioneers in advocating population issues. They assisted their counterparts in other continents in establishing their own groups, among them, the Inter-American Parliamentary Group (IAPG) in Latin America, the Forum of Africa and Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAAPPD), and the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (CAPPD). These pioneers include Mr. Takeo Fukuda, Mr. Takashi Sato, Mr. Eisaku Sumi, and Mr. Sat Paul Mital, all of whom are unfortunately no longer with us; and Mr. Huang Hua and Mme He Liliang, Mr. Shin Sakurai, and Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Parliamentarians have also worked tirelessly to mobilize resources to support population and reproductive health programmes. Without their commitment, I doubt very much the budget of UNFPA, the largest inter-governmental population agency in the world, would have been at the current level. Specifically, the effort of Japanese parliamentarians under the leadership of Dr. Taro Nakayama should be commended in this regard. The success of parliamentarians in the field of population and development has required strong political and personal commitment. As we still face the problems resulting from large population growth in Asia and, as we confront new emerging issues such as population aging combined with decreasing fertility, food security and water shortage, migration and rapid urbanization, we require your continued political and personal commitment, said Dr. Ando.

- Dr. Lee Jay Cho

Dr. Lee-Jay Cho, Senior Adviser of East-West Centre and Chairman of Northeast Asia Economic Forum, spoke on Population and Sustainable Development: The 21st Century Challenge for Population, Food, the Environment, and Water Resources. He pointed out that eighty percent of the world population currently resides in the less-developed regions, and by the middle of this century, this proportion will increase to more than 90 percent. During the same period, relatively little population will be added to the developed countries, and in a number countries such as Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom, where much of the world’s wealth is, the population size will be shrinking significantly.

He talked about food for growing population that projected increases of the global population will be more than double the aggregate demand for food between now and the middle of this century. Most agricultural experts recognize that, within the national boundaries of those countries that need increased food production, only a limited amount of uncultivated but arable land is available. Therefore, the increase in food production can no longer come by simply bringing new land under cultivation. It must come instead from increased yields. Agriculture is the major viable sector for employment and income generation in most developing countries today. But one of the major sources of environmental degradation is the increase in the density and activities of agriculture populations, who lack appropriate technology and financial resources.

The experts are divided on the issue of future food production and the preservation of environment for the rapidly swelling global population. On one side are the pessimists, including environmentalists and ecologists who see a disaster in the making. They predict the eventual collapse of the natural resource base and the environment, under the unbearable weight of future demand created by explosive population growth. They argue that "the rapid depletion of these essential resources, coupled with a worldwide degradation of land…and atmospheric quality, indicate that the human enterprise has not only exceeded its current social carrying capacities, but it is actually reducing future potential biophysical carry capacities by depleting essential capital stocks". On the other side are the optimists, including many economists and some agricultural scientists, who feel that technological innovations and continued investment in human capital will ensure adequate food production in the future, at least for the approximately 10 billion people whom they expect to be living in the mid-twenty-first century. The demand for food in the developed countries has already risen almost to the saturation point. It has stabilized partly for reasons of health consciousness, including popular concerns about dietary intake of animal fats.

The session was chaired by Mr. Yoshio Yatsu, MP (Japan).

- Mr. Zhang Huaixi, MP-China

Mr. Zhang Huaixi, MP from China and Vice Chairman of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), said that problems related to population, resources, environment and sustainable development will, in a rather long period of time, continue to be faced by Asian countries and the world at large. Population, resources and environment are three important factors closely related to the sustainable development. Although mankind made great efforts in the past several years, but the high speed of population growth, scarcity of natural resources and deterioration of environment are serious problems for mankind.

China is also plagued by the lack of water resources, and the per capita possession of water resources is only a quarter of world average level. A better solution to the problem of water shortage will have a direct bearing on China’s sustainable development, its economic and social development in the 21st century. Therefore, while deepening its reform and developing its economy, China will continue to strictly control its population growth and uphold the basic state policy of family planning. At the same time, China will pay equal importance to the exploitation, utilization, and protection of water resources.

China is still confronted with grave challenge in population and development. At present, the population on the mainland China is 1.259 billion, and around 11 million net will be added to that figure every year from now. It is estimated that in the coming decades, China’s population increase will not come to a halt until it gains another 0.3 billion. Besides, China still has dozens of millions poverty-stricken people.

The National People’s Congress plays important role in resolving the issue of population and development, and Mr. Zhang believes that the NPC will, as always, continue to focus on the issue of population and development.

- Professor Hiroshi Tsujii

Professor Hiroshi Tsujii of Division of Natural Resource Economics, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, spoke on Population Explosion, Food Shortage and the Need for Modification of the WTO (Free Trade) Principle. He said that the limitation in agricultural technology improvements and in natural resources is clearly represented by the sharp decline in the growth rates in grain yields on the globe during the past four decades. In order to cope with the exploding population the grain yield must grow at 3% annually, but actual growth rate is only about 1%. Grain productivity of major inputs has been declining.

Water shortage for agricultural production has been worsening especially in fast growing Asia. Water demand for nonagricultural purposes has been growing at high speed in many developing countries. Annual stoppage of water flow in the Yellow River in China is a good indication of water shortage in northern China. The underground water table in most of Punjab Districts in India is declining at about 50cm per year because of too much pumping up of water for agricultural production. This is also the case in many other places in India. If it will continue at this speed, it will cause in the near future a severe reduction in Punjab grain production.

Incorporating all the factors affecting world grain demand and supply discussed just above, using a simple projection model and assuming future values of exogenous variables of the model such as population, income, income elasticity and conversion ratio between feed and meet, I projected world demand and supply of grain in year 2020. The projected world deficit of grain in year 2020 is 417 million metric tons. The current world total grain trade is about 200 million tons, and the projected deficit is very large.

The agricultural trade liberalization under the WTO system will reduce food production in the North much more than the amount of food production increase in the South caused by the liberalization, and thus increase food price in the world. This price increase will lead to more use of chemical fertilizer and agricultural chemicals in the world and serious decline in the welfare of the large number of the world’s poor.

The WTO agricultural trade liberalization will distribute most of its economic benefits to developed countries. Thus this international economic and political bargaining of trade liberalization will cause a very unequal economic results and thus this bargaining is unfair. According to Prof. Tsujii, essential modifications in the bargaining process or in the distribution of the benefits of trade liberalization should be done. The WTO liberalization will lead to more food production far away from densely populated developed and developing countries to sparsely populated countries. In these countries food production will be conducted by larger size farms and more commercialized fashion that leads to higher variability in world food production. More food production in the densely populated developing agricultural countries will reduce poverty and equalize income distribution by increasing income of the huge agricultural poor in these countries.

The WTO agricultural trade liberalization will increase world food price variability, food price level, environmental destruction, natural resource depletion and inequality in national and world income distribution. The free trade rule, the core principle of the WTO system, should be modified, and socially optimal agricultural and trade policy oriented toward greater self-sufficiency of staple food in each country and minimize environmental destruction and natural resources depletion should be sought.. This is necessary for the people on the globe to cope with the constraints in natural resources and environments against population explosion, economic growth and expected future food shortage.

- Mr. Lakshman Singh, MP-India

- Dr. Somsak Chunharas

Dr. Somsak Chunharas, Director, Bureau of Health Policy Planning, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, spoke on Population and Health: Infant/Maternal Mortality, Medical Progress and Population. The topic of his presentation were: The Changing of Demographics; The Changing Health Problems; System Perspective of Health; Health Services and Expenditure; and New Paradigms for Health.

He said that the changing of demographics will also affect population structure, health, system perspective of health and health service expenditure. As a result, we need to adopt new paradigm for health. He gave examples of changing demography of several countries as well as the population in Thailand. He specially pointed out the change in sex ratios and life expectancy at birth. He was of the opinion that improvement in income will help reduce infant mortality and decline in fertility. Global immunization coverage will increase and maternal mortality will go down.

Dr. Chunharas also pinpointed the emerging challenges attributed to non-transmitted diseases in low and middle-income countries. He then narrated the system perspective of health, which includes health system, environment and individuals. Major components of the health systems are government and national public policies; information, education and mass media; semi public organizations and NGOs; private health care services; health care financing; health delivery and medical technology; and community and civil society. He concluded, conventional thinking is that better health service leads to better health, but cost of care is increasing. "We can achieve better service delivery by improving governance. This includes national level politics, services management and civil society and the communities as well."

This session was chaired by Dr. Luwalhati R. Antonino, MP (the Philippines)

- Mr. Steven J. Kraus

Mr. Steven J. Kraus, Programme and External Relations Adviser of Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in his talk on Impact of HIV/AIDS on Population, displayed a video presentation on HIV/AIDS in order to educate parliamentarians on the issue. He also reported the current situation on HIV that in the year 2000 about 50,000,000 people have become infected with HIV, about one third have died. Mr. Kraus raised an interesting point as to how parliamentarians can be involved in the issue of HIV/AIDS:

· as political leaders, can influence public opinion and increase public knowledge by relevant issues;

· as legislators, vote on acts of parliament and ensure legislation to protect human rights, and advance effective prevention and care programmes;

· as advocates, mobilize the involvement of government, private sector and civil society to discharge their social responsibilities in responding appropriately to the epidemic;

· as resource mobilizers, allocate financial resources to support and enhance the programmes relating to human rights principles.

This session was chaired by Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn, Secretary General, AFPPD.

- Dr. Bienvenido Rola

Dr. Bienvenido Rola, Chief, Social Policy and Integration of Disadvantaged Groups Section, Social Development Division, UN ESCAP, Bangkok spoke on Population and social Development: Five Years from the World Summit for Development. He said that the biggest problem in this part of the world was underemployment. The rest of employment opportunities were in agriculture, self-employment and casual wage employment. The seriousness of the problem can be gauged from the statistics: about 35 per cent of the employed in Bangladesh and about 47 per cent of those in Nepal worked for less than 35 hours per week; about 25 per cent of those regarded as employed in India worked for only a part of the year; more than 36 per cent of those employed in Sri Lanka worked for less than 40 hours per week.

Participants of the 16th Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development held in Bangkok (Thailand) on 18, 19 and 20 March 2000

- Ms. Lorraine Corner

Ms. Lorraine Corner, the Regional Programme Director of UNIFEM East & Southeast Asia Regional Office, based in Bangkok, spoke on the Forth World Conference on Women in Beijing and Review after Five Years. She highlighted what the Beijing Conference actually had to say about Women and Population; the progress that has been made; the constraints (Why we haven’t done better?); the process that has been taken place in the Asia Pacific to review the Beijing Platform for Action and at the same time, the progress over a longer period in implementing the Nairobi forward looking strategy; and the emerging population issues coming out of this process for Asia, including issues such as Reproductive Health and Population.

According to Ms. Corner, the International Women’s Conference in Beijing highlighted empowerment of women and reaffirmed: women’s right to control their own fertility; interdependence of development and rights; women’s reproductive rights; the fact that women’s reproductive rights are human rights; and women’s right to sexual and reproductive health. It also recognized the need of adolescent girls for sexual and reproductive services.

Since Beijing+5, there is declining fertility, family planning programme successes, falling infant mortality, increasing expectancy of life and health improvement in Asia. In regard to gaps and constraints, she said that populations continue to grow and impact of economic crisis is visible. There is high of adolescent fertility; high maternal mortality; poor reproductive health; and high son preference in South East Asia. Population is aging, and services provided for them are poor. So are inadequate, poor quality Reproductive Health services in several countries in Asia.

Reviewing the Beijing+5 in Asia and Pacific, Ms. Corner said that the Regional NGO forum, in Thailand, in September, preceded by preparation of country NGO reports and sub-regional report. The Inter-governmental high-level meeting was held in October at the UN ESCAP, Bangkok.

Mr. Zhang Huaixi, MP (China) and Vice-Chairman, AFPPD, chaired the session.

AFPPD Executive Committee Meeting

Mr. Colin Hollis, MP-Australia, elected as the new Secretary General

The 27th Executive Committee of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) met in Bangkok on 19th March 2000 under the chairmanship of Mr. Shin Sakurai, MP-Japan. The meeting was attended by Mr. Kunio Waki, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA and Dr. Hirofumi Ando, outgoing Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA.

The Executive Committee approved Mr. Colin Hollis, MP from Australia, as the new Secretary General, succeeding Prof. Dr. Prasop Ratanakorn who had retired from the Thai Senate. Mr. Lakshman Singh, MP from India, was also approved as one of the vice-Chairpersons.

According to the AFPPD Constitution, non-members of parliament cannot hold any position in the Forum. If any of the elected officer-bearers of AFPPD lose their seat, they will automatically lose their position. Keeping with this provision, the Executive Committee fills the vacant posts in consultation with the countries concerned.

Several events finalized

The Executive Committee approved National Parliamentarians’ Seminars in Sri Lanka, China, India, the Philippines and Nepal, and mandated the Secretariat to explore the possibility for Indo-China Parliamentarians’ Seminar in Cambodia, Pacific Sub-regional Meeting in Fiji, and the Seminar for the CIS Countries: a Global Meeting of Parliamentarians on Globalization, Food Security and Population. The Asian Forum will also try to promote internet links with all Regional and National Parliamentarian Groups.