Background

Prioritizing the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda on Population and Demography requires a recognition that national demographic trajectories are currently more diverse than in the middle and late twentieth century. Wealthy countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas face rapid population aging, while Africa and some countries in Asia prepare for the largest cohort of young people the world has ever seen. And many of the world's poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to face premature mortality, high fertility, and often unmet need for contraception.

The Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Population Dynamics (UNFPA, UNDESA, UN-HABITAT, IOM, 2013; thereafter GTC-PD Report) highlights three central aspects of how population dynamics affect the post-2015 development agenda:

The GTC-PD Report then groups the specific policy options in four thematic priority areas: high fertility and population growth, low fertility and population aging, migration and human mobility, and urbanization. Closely related recommendations were adopted as part of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Beyond 2014 Global Report (UNFPA, 2014), which is the culmination of a landmark UN review of progress, gaps, challenges and emerging issues in relation to the ICPD Programme of Action. These two reports are important because they are likely to shape the international agenda on population.

The goal of this chapter is to discuss the post- 2015 development agenda in the area of Population and Demography, focusing primarily on aspects of population size, age structure, and geographic distribution. It is important also to highlight that “population quality,” including human capital such as health and education, is an important further aspect of population dynamics that is essential for addressing the challenges of future population changes and for realizing the benefits of population dynamics for social, economic, and environmental development (Behrman and Kohler, 2014).