(8th meeting) 59th session of the Commission on Population and Development, CPD59

The eighth meeting of the 59th session of the Commission on Population and Development is called to order. Item four. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, I now invite the Commission to begin its consideration of agenda item 4, entitled "Program implementation and future program of work of the Secretariat in the field of population," in order to hold the panel of national experts on the program of work in population, followed by interactive debate. The documentation under item 4 is listed on iGov and the Commission's website. I am pleased to welcome the distinguished panelists joining this morning on the podium. It is also my pleasure to welcome Mr. John Wilmot, Director of the Population Division at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, who will be moderating the panel discussion. Before turning the meeting over to the moderator, I would like to remind participants that there is no pre-established list of speakers for the panel discussions. Delegations wishing to make comments and pose questions during the sub-scenario interactive debate are invited to signify by pressing the microphone button. I also take the opportunity to remind participants that the time limit for interventions is three minutes or less. I now turn the meeting over to the moderator to conduct the panel discussion. I look forward to an open, constructive, and productive exchange of views. Mr. Wilmot, you have the floor.

Thank you, Arp. And Excellencies, distinguished delegates, good morning. It's an honor and a pleasure to moderate this expert panel under agenda item four, which focuses on program implementation and the future program of work of the Secretariat in the field of population. Such work is carried out by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The work accomplished by the Population Division in 2026 has been summarized in the report of the Secretary-General, Some highlights include the release of World Urbanization Prospects 2025, which introduced a dual track approach, which on the one hand presents estimates of urbanization according to national definitions of urban versus rural space. And secondly, we've added also an analysis based on the degree of urbanization methodology, which provides information about a continuum from rural to urban, urban to rural, and which is applied in such a way that the results are comparable across countries. The division has also carried out analytical work and engaged in policy discussions on fertility and family planning, including an assessment of the implications for global demographic and health estimates of the termination of core funding for the demographic and health surveys program in 2025. Technical cooperation and capacity development continued, including support to member states to generate updated national and subnational population projections. The division also advanced ongoing methodological work to strengthen population estimates and projections alongside continued work on population aging and international migration, as well as UN system collaboration on population issues. Other notable initiatives included DESA's co-leadership with UNFPA of the task team on demographic change convened by the High Level Committee on Programs of the UN Chief Executives Board. And this comprised nearly 20 UN system entities. And the task team developed the United Nations system common messages on policy responses to demographic change, providing a coherent, evidence-based, and rights-focused set of principles to guide system-wide messaging and policy approaches to demographic change. Dear colleagues, this year we have continued the tradition established by this commission five years ago. by convening a panel of experts who are invited to discuss and comment on the work program of the Population Division from their national, regional, and personal perspectives. Please allow me to briefly mention that the recommendations offered during this panel over the past five years have been invaluable in shaping the work program of the Population Division, especially in relation to strengthening data accessibility, enhancing methodological support and technical assistance, expanding work on migration statistics and deepening our collaboration with regional and national partners. So let me begin by introducing our four panelists, although I believe one is still missing, right?

Correct.

Okay. But we're moving ahead nonetheless. First, I introduce Mr. Maliki, who is the Deputy Minister for Community Empowerment, Population and Manpower at the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning, known as Bappenas. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. He is responsible for formulating policy planning for the development of population, labor, social protection, social empowerment, aging, and inclusive development. Next, we will hear from Ms. Agnieszka Klon-Dominicak, who is president-- sorry for the pronunciation-- who is president of the Government Population Council of Poland, as well as vice rector for science and director of the Institute of Statistics and Demography at the Warsaw School of Economics. She is a leading expert in demography and social policy, and she's held senior national roles and served as an advisor to the European Commission. We're also joined on my left by Mr. Hamis Mugandawalis. Did I say that correctly? I'm not sure that I did. Who is the senior manager for population and social development planning at Uganda's National Planning Authority. With over 17 years of experience, he leads national strategies on population, education, health, and gender, and is active in community-based education initiatives. Our last panelist, who we hope is still going to arrive, is Dr. Marc-Henri Pierre-Francois, who is the director of the Directorate of Population and Human Development in Haiti's Ministry of Public Health and Population. He is an OB-GYN by training, and he oversees currently the implementation of Haiti's population policy and advances multi-sectoral approaches to health, education, and social protection. So more complete information about the panelists is available in the profiles that are posted on the website of the Commission's current session, the 59th session. So I just want to emphasize that the Population Division is here primarily in a listening mode. We look forward to hearing your feedback on the Division's work and any suggestions for the future that you may wish to offer. We will have two rounds of questions for the panelists. The first round will focus on the demographic situation in the countries or regions of the four speakers. and on the work on population-related topics that is performed by the speakers and the institutions they represent. In the second round, I will invite the speakers to focus on the work of the Population Division and on connections with demographic work conducted in their countries or regions. In each case, I will ask the panelists for a recommendation on how the Population Division can improve its work on population data and analysis at the global level. May I please remind all panelists to keep to the agreed time limit of four minutes for your answers in each round. Okay, so I will first turn to Mr. Maliki. Mr. Maliki, as Deputy Minister for Community Empowerment, Population and Manpower at the Ministry of National Development Planning of Indonesia, you bring valuable insight into how demographic factors shape national planning. Can you please share with us what are some of the key population issues facing Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific region today, and how do these issues influence your country's development planning priorities?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Indonesia, like many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, is undergoing a profound demographic transition. At present, Indonesia continues to benefit from a demographic dividend, which provides a critical opportunity to accelerate economic growth and also human development. However, this demographic shift also presents increasingly complex challenges. One key issue is ensuring that this demographic dividend is fully optimized through investments in human capital, job creations, and productivity enhancement. as well as preparation for the transition from aging to an aged populations. Without such efforts, the potential benefits of these transitions may not be fully realized. Since 2021, Indonesia's population has been aging. It will take only 20 years for Indonesia to become an aged society, and this will have significant implications for healthcare systems, pension coverage and its long-term sustainability, as well as social protection frameworks. This requires early and also forward-looking policy responses to ensure that older persons remain healthy, productive, and socially included while maintaining intergenerational equity. Indonesia continues to face persistent regional disparities in both economic and demographic outcomes. Rapid urbanization and internal migrations further shape these dynamics, creating both opportunities and pressures, particularly in urban areas. These population dynamics play a central role in shaping Indonesia's development planning priorities. Our long-term and medium-term development framework emphasize inclusive and people-centered development. We are prioritizing stronger health systems, equitable education, and adaptive social protection nutrition for children and pregnant women through the free meal programs and community empowerment for preparing the long-term implications of demographic change. In addition, we have developed a presidential decree establishing the national strategy on aging as a reference planning document for line ministries, local governments, and other non-government stakeholders. Furthermore, Our planning agency, in close collaboration with the relevant ministries and stakeholders, is currently formulating a grand design of population development for 20 years and also a roadmap of population development for five years. This strategic framework is aimed at guiding population policies in support of Indonesia's long visions, under which Indonesia aspires to become one of the world's five largest economies. In this regard, population policies are positioned as a key pillar to ensure that demographic change translates into inclusive, productive, and sustainable development outcomes. Ultimately, integrating population dynamics into development planning, supported by robust data and analytical tools such as national transfer accounts, enables us to better anticipate future challenges and opportunities. It ensures that demographic transformations contributes not only to economic growth, but also to social equity and long-term resilience. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Maliki. I'd like to now turn to, excuse me, Agnieszka, if I may call you by your first name, at least I think I know how to pronounce that. Agnieszka, as president of the Government Population Council of Poland, You have a unique perspective on demographic trends. What are the key population issues facing Poland and Europe today, and how have these evolved over time?

Thank you very much. The Polish Government Population Council is an advisory body to the Prime Minister, and our central obligation is to prepare and present annual report on the demographic situation of Poland that we present to the Council of Ministers together with policy recommendations. So in the reports, we highlight the most, the key issues that are related to demographic change in Poland. which, as almost every country in the world, goes through a profound demographic change. Poland experiences very fast population aging, one of the fastest in the European Union, which is a result of first, very low fertility levels that recently fell below 1.1, which is one of the lowest in the European Union and in the world. That is also related to challenges related to reproductive health, availability of support for those who want to have children and for health reasons are not able to have them naturally. There's also an increasing life expectancy, which is of course a good development, but also it means that we have increasing share of older people who require support not only in the area of pensions, but also health and long term care, which are right now one of the most important policy challenges in Poland. Our labor force is declining already for some years, so that is a challenge related to how to mobilize the human capital, how to extend working lives with relatively low retirement ages that we have, but also is related to how we can use the potential of migration flows to support our labor market development. Finally, what we observe is also increasing regional disparities. So we have regions where the population aging becomes very fast. There's a lot of internal migration, a lot of older people that stay alone. So the challenge, especially for the local governments, is how to develop inclusive local policies so that people feel integrated. So the main challenge for Poland in relation to demographic change is really the question how we can shrink smartly. The recent medium-term strategy developed in Poland puts demography at the heart of the policy challenges and policy developments that include, on the one hand, policies that encourage people to have children, but on the other hand, also policies that are required to adapt to the demographic change. We need to think in the context of megatrends, climate change, technological change, but also in the light of ensuring that we maintain intergenerational fairness, which is a challenge not only for Poland, but also is a part of the European strategy that has been recently established. Thank you.

Thank you very much for highlighting this importance of both mitigating the problems and adapting to the changes that are taking place. I now turn to Mr. Hamis Mugundawala. Mr. Mugundawala, from your perspective within the National Planning Authority of Uganda, what are some of the key demographic issues affecting Uganda and Africa today, and how do these issues shape your work in development planning?

Thanks, Chair. Your Excellencies, I want to say that Africa and Uganda face similar demographic issues. There are quite many, but I will restrict my discussion to about three of them. And the first and key is the high population growth rate. Uganda's population is growing at a faster rate above the continental average. Over the past 50 years, Uganda's population has sustained a higher growth rate of 3% per year. And that means that Uganda's population doubles after every 23 years, which is very phenomenal. And we realize that this momentum of population growth has partly been built by a high, although declining, fertility rate. Over the past 50 years, Uganda has sustained a very high fertility rate in the range of 7.1 to currently the 4.5 children per every woman. We realize as well that this fertility rate that is quite high is partly sustained by early child bearing by young girls. Actually, currently, I think we have the youngest grandmother in the world at 26 years. She conceived at 13, her daughter as well conceived at 13, and at 26 she was already a grandmother. Now, we know very well that early childbearing has very significant negative ramifications on girl child education, maternal and child health, and the economy because it increases dependence, burden, and poverty. A key distinctive feature as well of Uganda's population and Africa is that of a youthful population. The median age of Uganda is 18 and that of Africa is 19. This means that half of Uganda's population are children who do not effectively participate in the economy but require social services. The challenge with this is that youthful populations was termed as an opportunity because they guarantee labor. The rate at which they transition into working age populations does not keep pace with the rate at which the private sector creates jobs. And so, this sustains youth unemployment and as well, It sustains high rates of youth who are not in education, training, or employment. Now, these demographics have really continued to shape how Africa is planning for its population. And you see that a lot of resources are being voted into delaying childbearing and investment in girl child education and family planning. But also a lot of investment is going into livelihood, youth livelihood planning and development, and as well investments are being increased in basic and vocation education, access to affordable housing, universal health care and infrastructure. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mugenda Wala. I next turn to Mr. Marc-Henri Pierre-Francois. Thank you for joining us. Mr. Pierre-Francois, from your perspective within the Ministry of Public Health and Population of Haiti, what are the main population and reproductive health issues facing Haiti and Latin America and the Caribbean today? And how do these issues shape the priorities and the work of your department?

Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank the organizers of this panel for the opportunity to engage on this essential question, sexual and reproductive health. Among my current duties, I am the head of family planning and maternal health in Haiti. This experience has allowed me to bring a perspective to bear on operational factors. From the standpoint of the ministry, the chief health challenge, in particular maternal, neonatal, infant, and adolescent health, is something that is inextricably linked with the social structure that we are facing in Haiti and in other Latin American and Caribbean countries. First, neonatal and maternal mortality remains a main challenge. The causes are known very well, infection, hemorrhaging, and lack of access to care. This shows a clear gap in assistance especially as concerns the availability of social services, the presence of qualified persons, and the relevant systems. Second, early pregnancy among adolescents remains high. This has significant impacts on health, education, and development. This situation is closely linked to a still insufficient access to family planning, sex education, and education adapted to young people. Third, gender-based violence, especially in a context of insecurity, constitutes a threat to public health with major impacts on the mental and physical health of women and adolescents. This recalls for a multi-pronged, multi-sector approach. Fourth, Haiti is in a vulnerable context from the humanitarian standpoint. This is affecting the quality of services. Despite this, our ministry has taken on leadership in the response with the support for its partners to maintain access to essential services for the most vulnerable members of the population. Finally, there is still governance challenges and challenges of coordination. and challenges with human resources and in the health education system. And this undermines the effectiveness of the system and the equity of the system too. These challenges directly impact our strategic strategies. In response, our ministry has set out a clear thrust of its national plan. For 2026 to 2030, there are several components of that plan. expanding access to obstetric and neonatal health, which is of good quality, with the relevant infrastructure and strengthening of the personnel. Next, the institutionalization of the follow-up of health and ensuring sound decision-making. Also, acceleration of family planning and the prevention of early pregnancy, in particular among adolescents. Also the integration of services to address gender-based violence and to provide care. The digitalization of the health system so as to improve follow-up and quality of data. The strengthening of governance and coordination to align national priorities, the development of national schools throughout the country, and also the deployment of a strategy for obstetric and neonatal health, which is basic and comprehensive. We are at a pivotal moment. Solutions are known. The priorities have been set out. and the follow-up mechanisms are in place. However, without accelerating investment in the coming years, we risk losing the gains that we have already won. However, with results-based, predictable financing, we can save millions of lives, we can curb inequalities, and we can sustainably bolster our health system. Every moment of delay costs money and every targeted investment saves lives. Thank you.

I will now pose an additional round of questions to the panelists focusing on key products coming from the population division and on possible or desirable improvements to the division's work. So I will follow the same order, if that's okay, Mr. Maliki, Could you share with us how you have used the Population Division's data, reports, or other products in your work on development planning in Indonesia, providing some examples if you can? Also, thinking about the future, could you please suggest one thing that you would like the Population Division to improve or do differently to better support countries such as Indonesia in integrating population dynamics into national planning?

Thank you for these important questions. So Indonesia has made an extensive use of the population deficiency data, reports, and analytical products in supporting our national development planning. These resources have been instrumental in providing reliable demographic trends, population projections, and also age structure analysis. For examples, population projections and age disaggregated data has been widely used and cross-referenced with our own national population projections. This data has supported the formulation of our national and long-term and medium-term development plans, assisting us identify strategic priorities, especially with regards to labor force participation, human capital development, urbanizations, and also preparedness for population aging. Building on these global data sources, Indonesia has further strengthened its analytical capacity through the applications of national transfer accounts, or NTA. We also have recently completed compilations of NTA, and our office has finalized strategic policy documents based on this analysis. NTA enables us to better evaluate current programs, particularly in education, health, and also social protections to ensure the generational equity. In addition, Indonesia is advancing the use of national time transfer account, which complement NTA by capturing non-market contributions, including unpaid care work, such as child care, care for people with disability, elder care, and also household productions. This is especially important in recognizing the significant roles of families and communities in supporting both younger and older populations, which is often not reflected in conventional economic indicators. We are also drawing on this data to develop policies on the care economy. Looking ahead, one area where we would really welcome further support from the Population Division is in enhancing the granularity of accessibility and also policy relevance of the data. More disaggregated data, particularly at a single age, I know it's helping also issued in the website and the subnational level would greatly assist countries like Indonesia in addressing regional disparities, generational inequality, and also designing more targeted interventions. In addition, Continuous support in capacity building, methodological development, and also knowledge sharing, especially in emerging areas such as the integrating NT and NTTA into policy framework will be highly valuable. Strengthening collaborations with the global and national institution may be essential. Also to answer the demographic data and analysis can be effectively translated into practical and inclusive development policies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Maliki. I will turn next to Agnieszka. And could you please tell us how you've used the Population Division's data, reports and other products in your work, providing some examples if you can. And also thinking about the future, could you please suggest one thing that you would like the Population Division to improve or do differently?

Thank you. The Population Division's outputs are an important point of reference in how we approach our work at the Government Population Council, but also as demographic researchers and the scientific community in Poland. The product that we follow most closely is, unsurprisingly, the World Population Prospects. Since the methodological revision that moved the prospects to single years of age and single calendar years, this data set has become genuinely usable for the kind of cohort level analysis in low fertility populations like ours. It serves as a natural international comparator. Polish data come, of course, from Statistics Poland. But the prospects offer something that no national source can. A single methodological framework that places every country on the same footing with the same approach. There is a clear potential to make fuller use of this, for instance, in situating trends in fertility, aging and working age population in Poland alongside other countries in Europe, but also in the world and drawing on the variant projections to illustrate what is driven by fertility and mortality assumptions and what is driven by immigration assumptions. This distinction matters enormously in the Polish debate, especially since 2022, when we observed a huge inflow of the Ukrainian refugees. Both population divisions data and publications of diversified formats make it possible to evaluate the national level population changes in the context of common trends and diversities across countries and regions, necessary for understanding demographic changes and their substantially different consequences for countries at the different phases of the demographic development. Without this input of the Population Division, it would be impossible to acknowledge adequately the demographic megatrends in the debates on the sustainable development and efforts to achieve its goals. We also follow world population aging series. The Division reports on fertility and reviews on population policies, in particular on family policies in low fertility settings. This shaped the broader evidence base on which our recommendations on pension sustainability, long-term care and family policy instruments rest. When the Council advises the government on questions such as parental leave reform or child benefits, the international evidence the Division compiles is a part of the background we work from. Also, reports on migration are strongly supportive for our efforts to situate the transformation of Poland from the out-migration to the in-migration country in the regional and global changes of people's mobility. As researchers working for the Government Population Council, we highly appreciate the technical papers on methodological issues, which also provide additional incentives for recommendations and data and recent population in Poland. In particular, I would like to mention what Maliki already mentioned, the national transfer accounts, national time transfer accounts, and national inclusion accounts, and methodological advice and approach, which is extremely enormous in our both national work on estimating the national transfer accounts, which we plan this year as a historical development that we do from 2008. but also in the European context, as we embark on starting a European level project on intergenerational fairness that looks into the issues of generational economy and generational transfers across all European member states, leading to the policy advice for the European intergenerational fairness strategy. The work urbanization prospects is another reference point, particularly relevant to our interesting regional depopulation, which I have already mentioned. The contrast between the growth of the major metropolitan areas and the demographic decline in small and medium towns in eastern Poland is one of the issues that we return year after year. Finally, the divisions intergovernmental work matters to us institutionally. Poland served on the Commission on Population and Development between 2001 and 2004, and the Council coordinated the substantial Polish input. Even we are not formally a member, the Commission's documentation and ICPD review processes shape how we frame our own recommendations. Now to the question of what you would like for the Division to do in the future. Our suggestion is the very low fertility settings and populations. The division's analytical work, understandably, has historically been weighted towards global picture and towards developing countries. But the growing group of Eastern European and East Asian countries, Poland included, now face sustained fertility below 1.3, combined with rapid aging and complex migration dynamics. We would welcome a dedicated, recurring analytical stream for the division of this group of countries, comparative diagnostics, policy reviews and production scenarios specifically built around the very low fertility condition. For countries like ours, such a product will be of immediate and practical value. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Agnieszka, and well noted on the recommendation. Mr. Mugundhawala, how have you used the Population Division's data reports and other products in your work, and could you please provide some examples? Also, thinking about the future, could you suggest one thing that you would like the Population Division to improve or to do differently to better support your national planning efforts?

Thank you, Chair, and your Excellencies. I think Uganda, in the whole of Africa, is one of the greatest beneficiaries of support from the Population Division. you recall the support that we received before we did our 2024 census. The population division supported the country in various aspects including the establishment of the methodological framework and as well supporting us to digitize the entire process that went very well. And so in developing our fourth national development plan, we consulted a lot of the data that came out of the census. But as well, the population division has supported us in doing the Uganda population projections report, 2025 to 50. And this is being consulted widely in perspective planning at a national and subnational levels where you require to understand how population is going to change over time. But also, they are products that we have widely consulted, including fertility, mortality, family planning data sets and policy briefs. which we are widely using, especially in SDG monitoring at the Africa peer review mechanism. And we've as well consulted the World Urban Prospects, which is a tool that is guiding us a lot in urban and spatial development planning. at national and subnational levels, given that the rate of urbanization in Uganda is catching up, although it came from a low base. This is supporting a lot. Finally, we, of course, recognize the technical cooperation and capacity building you've been undertaking with one of our sister institutions, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. And this capacity has really gone a long way in helping it to generate evidence-based projections that are tailored to our context. Going forward, as a country, we believe that investing more in data systems is still critical, but this time we are looking at mainly administrative data, given that The other data sets, including census and surveys, are periodical and they tend to have a time lag. So if the population division can support the development of an efficient ecosystem for the production of administrative data to supplement the census and survey data, like I said, which always have time lags. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mugundavala. I'm going to take the occasion to remind everyone of the distinction between the Statistics Division and the Population Division of UN DESA, where the Statistics Division is responsible for helping countries with data collection and dissemination, and population division supports in the analysis of that information. So I think maybe one or two of your examples may have been related to the statistics division. I'm not sure, but I know that we did assist you in the, we worked with you very closely on the projections, the national and subnational population projections, but building data systems, that's more the area for the statistics division of DESA and for UNFPA, just as a general note for everyone in the room. So now I turn to Dr. Pierre-Francois. to ask how have you used the Population Division's data, reports, and other products in your work? Also, can you please identify an aspect of our work that you would like to see the Population Division improve or do differently to make our products more accessible and useful for your work?

Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates, Thank you for that important question. In the Ministry for Public Health and the Population, the data and the reports from the Population Division of the UN constitute a crucial tool for guiding our policies and programs. First off, the demographic projections and the fertility indicators and mortality indicators and the age structure of the population allow us to better grasp the demographic dynamics in our country. This is fundamental to plan health services, especially in area of maternal health, reproductive health, and the health of adolescents and young people. Having said that, we've carried out a census on our population and habitat that will that will be the first one in a long time. The last one was carried out in 2003. The lack of such a census currently limits us. So the Ministry of Public Health and Population is relying on statistics from various sources, data from services, epidemiological surveillance, and other sources in order to strengthen our information systems. We have a fragmented system, but in order to be perfectly successful, our system needs to be integrated, interconnected, and interoperable with the other national data systems. In this regard, the Ministry is exploring strengthening the times among our national system, the SISNU, and another office, and the system of vital records. These efforts will help to strengthen national statistic systems and support the preparation of the next census in coordination with the Haiti Statistics Office. Furthermore, the analyses and the reports produced by the Population Division have helped us with the elaboration of our national strategy, in particular in terms of family planning and the reduction of maternal mortality and the adaptation of health services to demographic changes. This has helped us strengthen strengthen our policies with international commitments, in particular the plan of action of the Committee on Population and Development and the 2030 Agenda. For countries like Haiti, some improvements could be made. First, it would be desirable to have more up-to-date and disaggregated data, especially in the vulnerable context we're in, so as to better reflect the local realities and support us in our targeted interventions. Second, the development of formats that are more operational and robust, such as executive summaries and interactive dashboards, This would help with making data easier to grapple with for decision makers. Third, strengthening technical support of national institutions, in particular in terms of the collection, analysis, and the utilization of data. That would be particularly beneficial to bolster our national capacity. And finally, increased integration of digital tools and innovative technologies, including geospatial information systems, would further enhance the accessibility and utilization of demographic data. By way of conclusion, the collaboration with the Population Division is essential to strengthen our national capacity and to ensure public policy can be benefited by reliable data. Improving the accessibility, technical accompaniment, et cetera, would produce an even bigger impact in the challenging context of Haiti. Before I wrap things up, we're grateful to the cooperation with the UN Population Division's work with our local staff, which has helped us with our different strategies and activities. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Pierre-Francois. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the interactive discussion. And I wish to-- but before we do that, I wish to draw your attention to the 14th Inquiry Among Governments on Population and Development. This was mandated by the General Assembly. This inquiry was mandated by the General Assembly in 1962 and was first implemented in 1963. And it's been carried out approximately every five years since then. And we're now on the 14th round of this. This inquiry remains essential for understanding national population policies and programs, as well as for monitoring progress towards the sustainable development goals. The current inquiry includes four modules covering population trends and aging, spatial distribution and urbanization, fertility, family planning and reproductive health, and international migration. These modules were developed in collaboration with our partner agencies, including WHO, UNFPA, UN-Habitat, IOM, and OECD. The 14th inquiry was launched in November of last year and it has so far received responses from only a limited number of member states, and the deadline has therefore been extended to the 31st of May. So no one is late yet, but I encourage delegations to engage with the relevant ministries in your countries to ensure timely submission of the modules. You will find a small card on each country desk, which includes a QR code to link you to the online and fillable PDF questionnaires for each module. in English, French, and Spanish. My colleagues from the Population Division are also here in the room in case you have any questions. I see some of them over here. Happy to take your questions about the inquiry and to help you push forward this process. And we thank you very much for your assistance with this. And I note that I believe, I was told that 25 countries have completed all four modules. Is that true? I'm not sure where I got the number 25, but Some countries have completed all four modules, and we thank those especially. Now, on to the interactive debate. I now invite delegations wishing to make comments and pose questions to our panel of experts or to the Population Division to signal your desire for the floor by pressing the microphone button. It's my intention to take three interventions at a time from the floor. And then I will invite the panelists to respond to the comments made or the questions asked. And after that, I will give another opportunity for questions and comments from the floor, three at a time. So please be reminded that the time limit for interventions is three minutes or less. And I thank you for your cooperation on this. So consulting now the list of requests for speaking, I see the United States, China, and Nigeria, who will be the first three. So I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the United States.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. As the Commission focuses on its future program of work, the planned publication of the World Population Prospects 2027 presents a key opportunity to strengthen the CPD's focus and dialogue on demography, population statistics, including migration, and the intersection of those areas with national security. A little more than a year ago, President Trump returned to office and committed to keeping Americans safe, vigorously securing our borders, ending illegal immigration, and facilitating the removal of illegal aliens. Thanks to his leadership, illegal entry at the southern border is now at levels not seen in over three decades, and illegal immigrants are being swiftly removed. As part of that broader commitment, the United States launched a technologically innovative initiative, Project Homecoming, focused on voluntary departures. This project allows illegal immigrants to return home voluntarily and includes free transportation and a stipend. Other countries that are affected by the problem of illegal immigration should seriously consider the best and most effective ways to facilitate the departure of those who have no right to remain. Over the last year, the United States has brought together many countries to discuss the crisis of illegal and mass migration and the importance of bringing it to a halt. Given its role in population statistics, the CPD can add value to these conversations. High quality population data, coupled with sound demographic analysis, remains essential to understanding the implications of migration. As countries deal with changing population dynamics, countries need resilient economic strategies that do not rely on inbound migration. Migration will not solve the challenges presented by the shifting population demographics around the world. As countries continue to face dramatically different and changing population dynamics, the CPD, if focused strategically, can enable multilateral efforts in which Member States can become safer, stronger and more prosperous. Thank you.

I thank the Distinguished Representative of the United States, and I give the floor to the Distinguished Representative of China.

I thank you, Chair. I would like to thank the experts for their presentations. With respect to the work of the Population Division, I would like to make some comments. The report of the Population Division of DESA is very impressive. We highly commend the Division for their longstanding professional contributions and outstanding achievements. As the most authoritative professional institution in the field of global population, the Division continuously prepares and updates flagship publications. and providing the world's most authoritative population estimates and projections, which serve as an indispensable data foundation for countries to understand demographic trends and formulate development policies. Through systematic research on fertility, mortality, international migration, population aging, and urbanization, the division has effectively bridged population science with policy dialogue. providing strong support for the implementation of the programme of action of the ICPD and the global monitoring of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Division has consistently been committed to strengthening national capacity through technical assistance, experience sharing and standard promotion. It has supported many developing countries, including China, in enhancing their capacity for the collection, analysis, and application of population data, helping bridge data gaps and promote evidence-based decision-making. In the context of profound adjustments in the global demographic landscape and compounding multiple challenges, the Division's work has become increasingly strategic, forward-looking, and public in nature, playing an irreplaceable role in building international consensus, coordinating actions, and addressing challenges. We look forward to deepening future cooperation with the division and colleagues from all countries, strengthening research and exchanges in the field of population, jointly addressing global population and development challenges, and advancing the achievement of the goals related to ICPD, POA, and the 2030 Agenda. In doing so, we aim to make greater contributions to building a community with a shared future for humankind and to promote common development for all. I thank you, Chair.

I thank the distinguished representative of China, and I'm going to give the floor to Nigeria, but after that, I just want to give an opportunity to an NGO to speak. So we'll do three countries and then one NGO, three countries, then one NGO. So after Nigeria, it will be Population Connection. So please prepare. But for now, I'm very happy to give the floor to the distinguished representative of Nigeria.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank the experts we have in the house today that represent the two extreme population structures that we are having in the world today. My first question or explanation goes to the representative of Indonesia. I'd like to ask what are the prospects you have in place to harness the second demographic dividend? seeing that your population is fast aging and where you have aged population and you are enjoying the first demographic dividends. So we would like to learn from you the prospect to reap the second demographic dividends. And also what are the measures you have put in place to address the rapid fall in your fertility rate? Because as you are aging, your fertility is reducing, that will definitely affect the content of your workforce going forward. Then my last My question goes to Population Division. I want to thank you for the series and versions of the world population prospects and estimates you have been releasing, which has helped many countries in the world, like Nigeria, where we have not had a census in the past two decades. So I would like to ask, from your Urbanization Prospect Report of 2025, if there were consideration, I haven't seen the report yet, but were there consideration to add to the factors that drive population, both the pull and the push factors, issues like climate change and issues like insecurity being exogenous reasons for driving urbanization around the world, particularly in Africa? Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of Nigeria for her questions and comments. And I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the Population Connection.

Thank you so much, Chair. Population Connection welcomes this report and the continued work of the Population Division in strengthening the demographic data analysis and technical cooperation. We particularly recognize the critical role of the division in advancing evidence of the links between population dynamics and sustainable development. This, unfortunately, remains largely neglected by policy maker and major health and development funders. Population dynamics are intimately linked with all 17 of the sustainable development goals, yet few organizations openly discuss their connections. In particular, population stabilization is key to fighting our biggest environmental crisis, climate change, natural resource depletion, and biodiversity loss. This fact is not widely acknowledged, which contributes to the severe underfunding of empowering solutions like the advancement of gender equality and the removal of barriers to family planning. Advancing reproductive agency must remain central to sustainable development and to the full realization of the ICPD program of action. We urge all stakeholders to do more to raise awareness of the links between population, the environment, and women's rights. We also welcome the report's analysis of global trends in fertility and population aging. While some view these shifts with concern, It is important to recognize that as countries develop and individuals, especially women, gain greater agency over their reproductive lives, aging is both expected and a sign of progress. We therefore are concerned by the growing tendency in some contexts to frame aging as a crisis requiring higher fertility rates. Aging is not a problem to be solved by pressuring individuals to have more children, rather It is a demographic reality to which societies can and must adapt. How can the Population Division assist member states in moving away from reactive pronatalist policies and towards a rights-based life course approach that views aging as a development success rather than a crisis? A wide range of policy solutions already exists, including investing in health aging, supporting lifelong productivity, strengthening social protection systems, and embracing inclusive labor policies. As the report suggests, a life course approach is essential. At this point, the question is not whether populations will age, but how will we respond? We urge that all responses remain firmly grounded in human rights, gender equality, and respect for reproductive autonomy. In closing, we conclude that there is a critical need to improve understanding and awareness of the interconnections between population and sustainable development and ask, How can the population division support countries in strengthening rights based policy responses and push back against narratives that frame declining fertility as a crisis? Thank you, Chair.

I thank the distinguished representative of the population connection, and I will now give the floor to the distinguished representative of El Salvador, followed by the representative of Cuba. El Salvador, you have the floor.

Thank you very much. El Salvador would like to express its gratitude to DESA for presenting the report on sub-programme 5. We would like to emphasize that for our country, demographics don't just mean statistics. Rather, it is a roadmap to address structural development challenges. We recognize that countries face different demographic realities, but common challenges when it comes to managing well-being. In that regard, El Salvador is transforming how we address our demographic reality through different actions that this subprogram should continue to support. Managing updated information. Thanks to our new census, we've gone from generic interventions to data-based public policy, ensuring that state institutions consider inequality gaps geography, and the specific needs of our population to generate real impact. Second, the life cycle and human capital. We use demographic data to invest in early childhood and youth policies to transform the demographic changes into an opportunity for productivity and rights throughout the life cycle. Third, territorial adaptation and resiliency. Given urbanization and migration. We use geospatial data to provide services and we take the state to where our population actually lives. Fourth, governance based on evidence. We're strengthening our technical capacities and creating our own frameworks to design solutions that are adapted to our demographic reality. Thinking of 2027, El Salvador would like to highlight three key priorities to strengthen this subprogram. First, Capacity building through technical training to use disaggregated data in order to ensure visibility for each citizen. Second, boosting geospatial information as an essential tool to eliminate geospatial inequalities. And finally, multi-sectoral integration of our demographic policy in health, education, youth, and aging in order to transform evidence in tangible well-being for our population. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of El Salvador for her comments. And I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Cuba.

Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. I think that this is an important panel, truly. And in each year of work here in the Commission, we have these kinds of panels and it really highlights the work of the Population Division. I am not going to speak about the demographic dynamics of my country and just briefly we'll have a side event and I will speak about that. And in the short time that has been allotted to me, I would like to say that the work with the Population Division has been great, and I would like to offer some ideas based on the demographic survey which you mentioned. And by the way, I would like to add that my country is working to answer it very soon, given its importance. And looking at the documents and the report of the SG, as well as the provisional annotated program of this session, it is clear that this commission has given a mandate to the Population Division on multiple occasions here at the UN, and that should remain, that should be strengthened, in fact. Someone asked me yesterday after a meeting that we had in the Population Division, and the director specifically mentioned some people, and what I said, the point I made was that the Population Division in the United Nations, which, by the way, their estimates do not always agree with our national statistics which are produced by our National Statistics and Information Office. But there are several factors that are important here. First, abundance. What we have in this document that I mentioned is abundant. There's a lot of data in there, mortality, urbanization, youth, and I could go on and on. Second, rigor. These studies are rigorous. They can be used without being afraid of any kind of possible information bias. These are also systematic documents. They're uniform and they are necessary. In Cuba, we use this as a reference to make comparisons, as some of the experts mentioned, and it is valid in that regard. I believe and I would suggest to the division and the panelists, and by the way, some of the panelists have already mentioned this, we are experiencing profound demographic changes at the global level. We've spoken about aging and the general trends that we see in terms of population in different areas of the world. And sometimes the relationship to development is very different. We've always said that the most important asset a country has is its population. And so I would suggest, what I would suggest to the population division is that based on the results of the 14th survey, plus all of the other information that they develop case studies for countries that are in different phases of this demographic transition and that could eventually, in the context of this change, work as a reference to carry out national studies and other kinds of studies. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of Cuba. And I see that we have no more requests from countries, but we have three civil society organizations who have requested to speak. So in order, we will go with the Children and Youth International, followed by International Association of Youth and Students for Peace, followed by International Federation of Medical Students Association. So I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Children and Youth International, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, distinguished delegates, the representative of member states, UN Secretariat, and fellow civil society colleagues. I speak on behalf of the ICPD Youth Platform. What we heard from panelists today from Indonesia, Poland, Uganda, and Haiti resonates deeply with us. Low fertility, adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence, these are not the regional issues. These are the global ones, and they are precisely the concerns that 400 young people from around the world brought to the Kotonou Youth Dialogue in 2024. What the panelists have confirmed today is that the diagnosis is shared. What remains unfinished is the translation of the diagnosis into the implementation that actually reaches young people in every country context. And that is why we are here, not only as civil society voices, but as a demographic group in our own right. 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 represent the largest generation in human history, concentrated overwhelmingly in the countries where demographic changes is most rapid, where population grows continuously, and where the urbanization accelerating, and where the climate displacement is already reshaping where and how people live. Yet in the analytical work, youth frequently appear as a transient transitional category, counted in fertility rates, tracking mortality statistics, noted in migration flows, but rarely centered as a population whose specific demographic needs and trajectories require dedicated analytical attention. The demographic changes this panel is asked to address are not abstract trends. They are live conditions of young people today, and the program of work must reflect that. We recognize the population's divisions' genuine contribution in 2025. Looking to 2030, 2027, we urge the divisions to prioritize three things. One, use disaggregated SRHR indicators. The 2027 program plan should explicitly name disaggregated data on adolescents and young users SRHR outcome as a priority deliverable, disaggregated by age, gender, geography, and disability status, which were raised by the Cotonou Action Agenda. This disaggregation is also essential for understanding the low fertility challenges many member states are navigating Young people's fertility intentions shaped by housing costs, economic insecurity, and gender inequality cannot be understood without youth-centered data. Second, the SRH access for young migrants, especially for marginalized youth. The division tracks migration flows with increasing sophistication, but migration data tell us where young people move, not whether they can access contraception, maternal care, or HIV services when they get there. The 2022 7 program should develop an analytical framework for tracking S services accessibility for young uh for young migrants across member states a gap none of the current work addresses three DHS Gap as a programmatic emergency we urge the population division to use its analytical and advocacy role to flag the DHS funding Gap as a systemwide emergency working in collaboration with statistics division and member states to support to support diversified and sustained financing for demographic and health survey programs. The Cotonou Youth Action Agenda names this commission specifically as an accountability forum. Two years later, we are here to hold that accountability, not as a critique of the division technical work, which is strong, but as advocates for ensuring that work reaches the young people who need it most. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of Children and Youth International, and I give the floor to the distinguished representative of International Association of Youth and Students for Peace.

Thank you, Chair. My name is Gorin Gutabingi from Alliance of Women Advocating for Change in Uganda, and speaking on behalf of the International Association of Youth and Students for Peace. We welcome this year's theme on population, research and technology in the context of sustainable development, recognizing that adolescents and young people are coming of age amid rapid demographic, technological and scientific transformations that are reshaping power, access and decision making globally. As the ICPD Youth Platform, we welcome some of the elements of the proposed revision of the resolution, including its recognition of young people as architects of innovative and the inclusion of the telemedicine and e-health. This is an essential complement to ensure that access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, including young people. We also applaud the inclusion of the need to prevent and eliminate technology-facilitated gender-based violence, gender digital divide, and the focus on inclusive and quality health. However, global research ecosystems remain highly unequal. Many countries face structural barriers related to research funding, infrastructure, and participation in international research collaboration. These disparities shape whose knowledge is produced and whose priorities are addressed through innovation. Addressing these inequalities is essential for advancing the right to development and ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights, which affirms that all people have the right to participate in and benefit from scientific and technological progress. Building on the outcomes of the Cotonou Youth Action Agenda, we call for the following. The strengthening of evidence-based knowledge systems, sharing scientific information that challenges stigma, discrimination, and harmful gender norms remains critical for advancing gender equality and improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Responsible use of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, must prioritize privacy, well-being, and human rights. address structural inequalities in access to technological and scientific progress, strengthening domestic research capacity, supporting regional innovation ecosystems, and advancing equitable technology transfer are critical to ensuring that innovation benefits all communities equally. Thank you.

I thank the representative of the International Association of Youth and Students for Peace. And I give the floor to the distinguished representative of the International Federation of Medical Students Association.

Thank you, Chair. Honorable representatives of member states and panelists. My name is Sofia Andrade. I'm a Mexican medical student, and I speak on behalf of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations, representing 1.5 million future physicians across 120 countries. Our federation does not just advocate for the objectives stated by the division. We work through them. Through our standing committees on sexual and reproductive health and rights and public health, IFMSA runs hundreds of community-level projects annually, ranging from adolescent health education to climate health surveillance. By providing peer-to-peer training on digital health and demographic literacy, we are already functioning as a global incubator for the very skills this division aims to foster in its 2027 programming plan. Our role as medical students is not merely academic. We are the practitioners who will spend the next four decades translating this data into survival rates, taking also into account the projected global shortfall of 10 million healthcare workers by 2030, and that our youth will be responsible for trying to fill that gap. The 2027 plan rightfully prioritizes the usability of data, yet knowledge production is not enough. We assert that data is only as powerful as the hands that hold it. Technology and research must also prioritize the training of the health workforce to interpret and apply demographic trends, or we risk leaving the most vulnerable regions in a permanent data shadow. Meaningful youth engagement is not a checkbox. It is a technical necessity. Data without a trained workforce is a wasted resource. We are fully committed to providing the technical support and the youth-led perspective necessary to create a functional bridge between the population division and global health workforce. Taking this into account and given the medical students are one of the primary users of data for community health advocacy, my question to the panel is, would the division consider creating a formal technical advisory group for youth and health to ensure that the capacity development activities are reaching the professionals who will implement these policies, as well as ensuring that global demographic trends are translated into actionable clinical insights for the primary providers on the ground? Thank you, Chair.

I thank the distinguished representative of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations. That concludes the interventions from the floor. I see no more requests for the floor. And so I would now like to bring it back to the speakers to give them a chance to respond to any questions that may have been directed at them. Who would like to go first? Either questions directed at you or any things you want to comment on, Mr. Maliki.

Okay, thank you. Also, thank you for the comments from Nigeria. There are two, at least, questions from Nigeria. First is on the second demographic dividend. The consequences of the aging population is that the elderly populations and also later retirements increase the saving as well as the investments. So therefore, the effect of the second demographic dividends will last longer than the first demographic dividend. In our policy in Indonesia, we try to optimize the second demographic dividend through improving the pension coverage, especially not only formal workers, but also the informal workers. That is the biggest challenge in Indonesia. And then we also have the financial and also investment literacy, because not only the basic pensions that we have in the programs, but also we try to improve the other type of pensions so they can have the choices. And then the third one is on investment policy so that the accumulations of the investments, the accumulation of the pensions funds can be invested more productive and can have more effects on the economic growth. And then the second question is on the total fertility rates. Indonesia is now is the total fertility rates also, especially in the big cities, tend to decline quite faster than the other places. And we try to maintain the total fertility rates at the replacement rate in 2.1. and we are also happy to inform you that during this new cabinets, we have the new ministers. It is upgraded from the Family Planning Agency into the Ministry of Populations and the Family Development, because this is also related to our grand designs of the population development, just to maintain the total fertility rates into the replacement rate into three pillars. One is on the quantity of the populations as well as the family development. And then the second one is on the improving the quality of the human capitals. And then the third one is on the urbanizations and the population distributions. So then we can have more balanced population distributions among the regions. So through these three pillars, we try to aim to maintain the total fertility rates into several policies. I think that's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Maliki. Are there other panelists who would like to respond or add further comments? No? If not, I will make a couple comments in response to things that were said about the Population Division. First of all, thank you very much. We very much appreciate your appreciation of our work, and we're glad to hear that it's valuable to you in various ways. Several people mentioned a desire for more disaggregated data along various dimensions. Some of you noted that we have made efforts in this regard recently by moving to having single years of age and single years of time. That was a major project of disaggregation. Along other dimensions, it becomes more difficult for us to take it on because we have no mandate, for example, for subnational population estimates. We have no mandate for that and really no resources. We do have, however, the capacity to assist countries in developing their capacities for doing such work. And that's, for example, what we had done in working with Uganda recently. And so there's a point where our work will stop, but our capacity development can go beyond that. And we're happy to work with countries, not always individually, but preferably in groups so that we get more of a result for the same investment. For the comment from Population Connection on how to avoid reactive crisis-based approaches to population issues, we're very much on the same page with you, and I'll just point to some work that we've done in the last year with UNFPA on a system-wide narrative around population issues, trying to, in fact, avoid the most extreme and reactive approaches to population issues and to emphasize the importance of a rights-based approach. And so I think we're very much on the same page with you and we'd be happy to hear more from you about what we could do in this area. I'm not sure that I'm answering everything here. Case studies, Cuba mentioned the use of case studies. You know, this is one of those things where we have tried this, we've done some work with case studies in one of our reports. two or three years ago on population aging. There were several case studies to look at, I think, four countries to see how they were individually being affected by the process of population aging, how they were adapting. And so we agree that it's a very good approach and we will continue to use it as we move forward. But thank you for that recommendation. On DHS data. and the gap that has been created by the defunding of the core funding of DHS. We agree with you completely, and we have been working closely with the Statistics Division first to document the impacts of the defunding of the DHS program and what would happen if it's not if something is not done to replace the funding that was there before or creating some new mechanism possibly on how such surveys can be conducted in a way that has greater country ownership. And so we are in close conversations with the Statistics Division and member states and others on how to recover from this situation, which came very suddenly last year. I think those are the major things that I wanted to comment on. So, again, we're very grateful to hear your reactions. I thank all the panelists for your careful contributions. We've listened to all of you today and we've taken careful notes of what you've said and your recommendations will help to guide us in our work over the next year. We hope that this will only be the beginning of a dialogue that we can continue over the coming year and beyond. Please feel free, speaking to the panelists, but also to all of you, please feel free to reach out to us over the coming year if you have further ideas about how to improve the work of the Population Division. And let me thank also our audience, especially those who have engaged in the interactive discussions with our panelists. And lastly, I would like to thank those who contributed to organizing this panel, both technically and substantively. And also, I'd like to thank the interpreters for their tireless work. And with that, I will hand this meeting back to the chair. Thank you.