Xxiv. the Place of the Urban Poor in the Cairo Programme of Action and the Millennium Development Goals

Over the next thirty years, the world’s population is expected to grow by nearly one-third, but this growth will be highly concentrated in the urban areas of poor, developing countries (United Nations, 2002). Of the anticipated 2 billion persons to be added to the world’s total by the year 2030, fully 1.9 billion are expected to reside in the cities and towns of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Rural population totals, by contrast, are likely to undergo little net change over the period and relatively small changes are also expected for the urban populations of rich countries (figure XXIV.1). This urban transformation is also evident in national percentages. Whereas in 1950 less than 20 per cent of the population of poor countries lived in cities and towns, by 2030 the figure will likely have risen to nearly 60 per cent. Within a few years, according to these projections, it will no longer be possible to speak of the developing world as if it were mainly composed of rural villages. As the urban transition unfolds in the coming decades, researchers and policy-makers concerned with poverty and reproductive health must increasingly set their concerns in urban contexts.