HIV/AIDS, ethnic wars and migration are giving new prominence to the United Nations Population Division. This is the viewpoint put forward by Barbara Crossette in an editorial piece released online on U.N. Wire, an independent service covering the United Nations and the World.

Crossette observed that as the world's keeper of population statistics, the office has been instrumental lately in anticipating a worsening of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, projecting future fertility decline in most developing countries, and foreseeing the continuing trend of massive international migration.

The imminent threat of HIV/AIDS to the survival of the African continent is one of the key issues to be discussed in a series of meetings and reports to be held in the next few months on new and potentially controversial findings on world population trends.

The division’s director, Joseph Chamie, when interviewed by U.N. Wire, presented a grim scenario of millions of people dying from AIDS prematurely and declining life expectancy in some of the hard-hit countries in Africa, which in turn has serious political and economic implications.

In some instances, bold reports from his division have met with cold reception from some member countries. Chamie, however, has stood his ground about the statistics.
“There is no argument about what the facts can show. Pensions, health care, school construction, the labour force - all that is mathematically determined”, Chamie was reported as saying. He added that his field was demography, not advocacy or saying what Governments would like to hear.

Currently, the Population Division is exploring the feasibility of a global conference on migration. They have also challenged the assumptions about automatic relationships between religion and birthrates. According to the article, growing urbanization is another area that the Division will be focusing on in the next few months.
(Source: U.N. Wire, 25 June 2003)