Group items tagged

One in four women in developing countries wants to avoid becoming pregnant or delay or space their births but is not using a modern family planning method.

sub-Saharan Africa, women in the region today have on average 5.1 children

Investment in voluntary family planning helped Thailand accelerate economic growth and provides a model for sub-Saharan African countries.

his shifted the age structure of Thailand's population, providing a critical first step toward achieving the economic benefits of a demographic dividend.

Rwanda is one of several countries in eastern and southern Africa where investments in voluntary family planning and child survival have led to significantly lower fertility.

If the impressive progress continues, Rwanda will, by 2030, have achieved the demographic conditions necessary for accelerated economic growth.

While family planning is necessary for establishing the conditions for a demographic dividend, investments in child health, education, and gender equality are critical additional steps that contribute to family planning use and economic growth.

The maternal mortality ratio has declined by 45 percent worldwide, and the proportion of the global population using an improved drinking water source rose from 76 percent to 91 percent

Those still left out, however, are increasingly concentrated in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and all across the globe, women and young people face the highest odds of living in poverty

While hunger has fallen in most areas, projections indicate that the prevalence of undernourishment in the Middle East will rise by 32 percent between 2014 and 2016 due to war, civil unrest, and increasing numbers of refugees.

Progress in maternal health is sharply divided along rural-urban lines

marginalized and easily forgotten amidst promising overall trends. “Millions of people are being left behind, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity, or geographic location,”

We need to tackle root causes and do more to integrate the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development,

“employment opportunities have diminished in both developing and developed regions

he employment-to-population ratio, which measures what percentage of the working population is employed, has declined around the world since 1990 with the biggest drops in East and South Asia.

rapid urbanization is taxing already-inadequate infrastructure. The proportion of the urban population living in slums in developing regions fell from 39 percent in 2000 to 30 percent in 2014, surpassing the MDG target. However, the total number of urban residents living in slums continues to grow as a result of accelerating urbanization and population growth

Population growth and increased consumption have also stressed the environment, presenting challenges that overshadow progress on the seventh MDG

While ozone-depleting substances have nearly been eliminated since 1990 and the ozone layer is expected to recover by midcentury, carbon dioxide emissions have risen by more than 50 percent in the past 25 years

Between 1998 and 2011, the number of countries experiencing water stress increased from 36 to 41. Water scarcity currently affects more than 40 percent of the world population, a statistic that is only projected to increase.

For the global poor whose livelihoods are directly tied to natural resources and suffer the most from environmental degradation, climate change hinders development in other sectors. That’s why environmental change is a much bigger focus in the Sustainable Development Goals, set to be adopted later this year.

hospital's long-term-care ward

Japanese leaders have made radical changes to the way health care is delivered in recent decades, most notably with the introduction of long-term-care insurance in 2000. The system is far from perfect, but Japan has been unafraid to improve the system as they learned its faults, and as an economic boom gave way to zero growth.

ut Japan's government, businesses and society are facing these challenges earlier than others, allowing the world to learn and benefit from their stumbles, innovations and experiments.

5 per cent of Japan's population is currently over the age of 65,

where the hospital says there are no trainee nurses.

this demographic is forecast to make up a full 40 per cent of the country's population by 2060

2010 and 2060, the percentage of Japanese citizens over the age of 75 will more than double from 11 per cent to 27 per cent

he absolute number of old people will soon level off in Japan, but the proportion of the population who are young is declining rapidly: The percentage of Japanese younger than 19 years old, who constituted 40 per cent of the population in 1960, will decline to just 13 per cent in 2060.

apan's total population peaked in 2010 at around 127 million people and has already begun to decline. In 2014, the country lost a record 268,000 people, as deaths continued to outstrip births.

ging society is a reality, as well as a business opportunity.

Lawson Inc.,

"seniors' salon" with a blood pressure monitor, pamphlets on municipal health care services and nursing homes, and on-staff social workers.

he store also has a special section featuring adult diapers, special wipes for bathing the elderly, straw cups, a gargling basin and detergent that is tough on urine and perfect for bed mats and wheelchair coverings. Staff will also deliver heavier items, such as bags of rice or water, to local residents.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration is concerned about how Japan's aging and shrinking work force will slow down the national economy. One piece of Mr. Abe's so-called Abenomics revival program – which also includes getting more women in the workplace – is an emphasis on new medical technologies, including experimental regenerative medicine and cell therapy. The hope is that with two new acts governing regenerative medicine to help commercialize technologies more quickly, the Japanese government can save money on future health care costs while spurring the creation of a valuable new industry – particularly in bio-medical hubs such as the one in Kobe, which features a gleaming new mini-city of medical buildings, research centres and hospitals on a man-made island near the port city's airport.

macro level, Japan's predicament is prosperity, which is always followed by lower fertility rates and higher life expectancy. At 83.4 years, Japan has the longest life expectancy at birth in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Many Japanese people are also fearful of the type of immigration that has sustained slow population growth in the industrialized West.

The elderly in Japan, similar to seniors across Asia, are less likely to live with their children

women, after decades of opting out of a career after giving birth, are also being encouraged by the government to re-enter the work force, something that may eventually help boost Japan's declining labour numbers, as the government hopes, but also prevents women from acting as caregivers.

small baby boom "echo" took place between 1971 and 1974

Liberal Democratic Party to expand the country's health care system as Japan aged, but by the 1990s, the enormous price tag raised the spectre of tax hikes.

Japan chose to supplement its national pension plan with long-term-care insurance (LTCI), which was implemented in 2000.

one of the most generous long-term-care systems in the world in terms of coverage and benefits."

People pay into the system starting in their 40s and are eligible to receive benefits starting at 65, or earlier in the case of illness.

assigns the person a care level.

allowing the patient to choose between competing institutions and service providers offering everything from home visits, bathing and help getting groceries to paying for short stays in hospitals or long-term residence in nursing homes and specialized group homes for dementia patients.

The LTCI system covers up to $2,900 a month in services, as opposed to cash payment, and does require "co-payments" from patients. LTCI co-payments are capped or waived for low-income individuals, and the system saves money by providing options other than full-on institutionalization.

has demonstrated to other governments around the world that it pays to adjust programs before problems become systemic.

The LTCI system was originally designed to alleviate the strain on family caregivers, but that hasn't entirely happened. Research shows that LTCI, in terms of freeing up family carers to work and have more free time for themselves, has only marginally benefited caregivers, and only then from wealthier families.

The result is that, since 2012, Spain’s population has been shrinking.

The paradox is that as police and security forces battle to keep them at bay

Record numbers of economic migrants and asylum-seekers are seeking to enter the European Union this summer and are risking their lives in the attempt

In Portugal, the population has been shrinking since 2010.

Portugal’s population could drop from 10.5 million to 6.3 million by 2060.

In Italy the retired population is soaring, with the proportion of over-65s set to rise from 2.7% last year to 18.8% in 2050.

Germany has the lowest birthrate in the world: 8.2 per 1,000 population between 2008 and 2013,

On average, Britain’s population grew at a faster rate over the last decade than it has done over the last 50 years.

a direct threat to economic growth as well as pensions, healthcare and social services.

the grey vote.

“During the same time frame, expenditures on pensions rose by more than 40%. We’re moving closer to being a gerontocratic society – it’s a government of the old.”

In 2012, the regional government launched a multi-pronged initiative to address the falling fertility rate, with plans to roll out measures such as home and transport subsidies for families and radio advertisements urging women to have more children.

The region of Galicia is one of the few in Spain that has addressed the issue.

“these issues will only be solved by a miracle.”

ack of financial security that prompts many Italians to live with their parents well into their 30s. The difficulty for mothers to return to the workplace also means women must make considerable sacrifices if they decide to have children.

give low-income couples a monthly “baby bonus” of €80

The youth jobless rate hit 44.2% in June, while overall it stood at 12.3%.

By 2060 the government expects the population to plunge from 81 million to 67 million,

In order to offset this shortage, Germany needs to welcome an average of 533,000 immigrants every year, which perhaps gives context to the estimate that 800,000 refugees are due to come to Germany this year.

Only Scandinavia appears to be weathering the demographic storm with any success, partly thanks to generous parental leave systems, stable economies, and, in the cases of Sweden and Norway, high net immigration.

n Sweden it is possible to combine motherhood with a working life,”

"Up in the north, it's still about survival," he said.With that in mind, the Canadian Army plans to outfit individual soldiers with new winter warfare equipment, including snowshoes, skis and toboggans. Up to $49 million will be spent on that gear with deliveries to begin in 2021.

he Army plans to purchase up to 100 all-terrain vehicles capable of operations in the snow.

Increasing the Canadian government and military's presence in the resource-rich Arctic is a key defense platform for Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Harper contends that the increased military and government presence is needed because oil, gas and minerals in the Arctic are critical to the country's economic growth. The types of incidents the Canadian Forces would most likely have to respond to in the Arctic, Jolin said, would be a major environmental disaster or a search-and-rescue operation, such as aiding a commercial cruise ship that has capsized after hitting an uncharted obstacle.

"The biggest thing will be coordination, so you'll want to have the ability to mount a command post, have good radios and radars, good surveillance," he said. "It's about command and control, power generation and communications."

construction of two polar communications and weather satellites.

The Canadian military also has an increased surveillance capability planned for the Arctic, dubbed Polar Epsilon 2. The system will use the data produced by the Canadian government's Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) spacecraft currently under design. The RCM satellites are scheduled for launch in 2018.

Originally the plan was to build a deep-water port at Nanisivik, but because of the high costs of construction in the Arctic that has been scaled back to a $130 million refueling site for the Royal Canadian Navy. The site will be used to support the new Arctic offshore patrol ships.

systems approach, where the interactions between different sectors are modelled as global and regional flows, ignoring day-to day realities, local priorities and needs; • A decision-making tool based on these interactions, which provides an economic valuation of these resources and a market mechanism to efficiently allocate them.

It treats the trade-offs between human needs for water, energy and food as a perfect equilibrium model, in which resource allocation can be decided.

This can encourage the commodification of resources, downplaying environmental externalities, such as biodiversity and climate change, as well as poverty alleviation needs.

The villagers affected by the Rasi Salai Dam are now experiencing water scarcity after losing these wetlands.

Originally, the government claimed that the dam would provide water for 5,500 hectares of land

look

This example highlights how elements of the nexus, whether food, water or energy security, take on different meanings at different levels of analysis, from the global to the local.

optimisation;

A different framing of the nexus is required: one which recognises that global priorities may not reflect local concerns; and that resource allocations are political decisions, which need to be decided through more open and transparent decision making. The nexus must become more inclusive, so that its interrelationships can be grounded in local realities and human needs.