Quito to Host ECLAC's Meeting
on Population and Development

Photo: Courtesy UNFPA Costa Rica

Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, will host one of the most important regional meetings where priority topics related to population and development will be discussed. The Ad Hoc Committee on Population and Development of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will meet in this city from 4-6 July 2012 and will be attended by representatives of member States and associates of this United Nations regional commission.

The meeting is organized by ECLAC, supported by the Government of the Republic of Ecuador and the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. At the event, specific topics relevant to the region in terms of population, territory and sustainable development will be discussed.

Other topics to be addressed at the meeting are the 2010 round of censuses, the main demographic trends in the region and their consequences, ageing and the rights of older persons, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant populations in Latin America, and international and internal migration.

The Committe will address the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo in 1994) after 2014 in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Plan of Action on Population and Development – drafted after the Regional Conference in Mexico in 1993 – in which the countries of the region agreed to facilitate integration and national experience sharing for formulating and applying population policies and programmes.

ECLAC will present a document entitled Population, territory and sustainable development, drafted in colaboration with UNFPA, which will be the basis for debates among delegates. On the one hand, the report assesses the links between the location and mobility of the population; on the other, it analyzes sustainable development in different types of territories found in the region. It also offers an updated overview of the population dynamics in urban and rural areas, as well as in border areas, low population density areas and regions within countries.

The document shows strengths and weaknesses in current population location and mobility patterns and their implications for sustainable development at a national and subnational level. It also examines the achievements and limitations of public policies in this field and makes a proposal for the next steps to be taken, considering demographic perspectives in the different types of territories analyzed and their sustainable development.

In keeping with the main topics to be addressed by the Committee, the following five panel discussions will take place:

• Population, territory and sustainable development in the Caribbean.
• Investing in the youth: Gaps in the universal access to sexual and reproductive health.
• Indigenous peoples, territory and sustainable development.
• Territory and public policies.
• Population and rural development.

The meeting of the ECLAC Ad Hoc Committee on Population and Development, to take place at the Hotel Hilton Colón in Quito, will be chaired by the Executive Secretary of ECLAC Alicia Bárcena. As special guests, the President of Ecuador Rafael Correa and the Executive Director of UNFPA Babatunde Osotimehin, among other renowned attendees, international experts and civil society representatives will also participate in the event.