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A population dynamics compendium for German development cooperation

Based on its ex­pe­ri­ence in in­te­grat­ing pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics into de­vel­op­ment work, Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion has pre­pared this hand­book as a user-friendly tool for de­vel­op­ment pro­fes­sion­als, sec­tor ex­perts and de­ci­sion-mak­ers in part­ner coun­tries, as well as other in­ter­ested read­ers.

It out­lines global and re­gional pop­u­la­tion trends, and pre­sents proven ap­proaches and prac­ti­cal ex­am­ples from Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion, as well as re­gional and sec­toral en­try points for in­te­grat­ing pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics into de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion. Through prac­ti­cal in­sights and hands-on tools, the hand­book sup­ports its read­ers in iden­ti­fy­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges that de­mo­graphic changes can pre­sent and in ef­fec­tively fac­tor­ing these into the plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion of de­vel­op­ment mea­sures. The hand­book con­tains a wealth of use­ful facts and fig­ures, links to es­sen­tial doc­u­ments and data­bases, as well as in­for­ma­tive maps, graph­ics, charts and di­a­grams.

This por­tal in­tro­duces the main top­ics that can be ex­plored in more depth in the hand­book it­self.

A peek in­side the population dynamics hand­book

An ini­tial Overview chap­ter briefly pre­sents the hand­book and the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion con­cern­ing pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics.

In Global and re­gional pop­u­la­tion trends, the hand­book in­tro­duces the ma­jor trends that shape pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics to­day: pop­u­la­tion growth, age­ing and move­ment in the form of ur­ban­i­sa­tion and mi­gra­tion. It ex­am­ines how birth and death rates evolve over time and how as a re­sult all so­ci­eties pass through the de­mo­graphic tran­si­tion at dif­fer­ent mo­ments and at their own pace. The reader is also in­tro­duced to the ‘de­mo­graphic div­i­dend’, a win­dow of op­por­tu­nity for a coun­try to reap eco­nomic progress dur­ing a pe­riod with low­ered birth and death rates. The chap­ter goes on to pre­sent the evolv­ing de­mo­graphic sit­u­a­tion in five re­gions – Asia; Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean; the Mid­dle East and North Africa; East­ern and South­ern Eu­rope; and sub-Sa­ha­ran Africa – and as a com­par­i­son, in Ger­many.

Ap­proaches and ex­am­ples from prac­tice in Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion out­lines the role of pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics for the man­age­ment of bi­lat­eral co­op­er­a­tion and in the plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion of de­vel­op­ment mea­sures. It also pre­sents step by step tried and tested ap­proaches of Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion, il­lus­trated by con­crete ex­am­ples of prac­tice from dif­fer­ent coun­tries and sec­tors.

Pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics and se­lected sec­tors of Ger­man de­vel­op­ment co­op­er­a­tion looks at how pop­u­la­tion size, struc­ture and dis­tri­b­u­tion im­pact on spe­cific do­mains, and how these in turn in­flu­ence de­mog­ra­phy. It ex­am­ines hu­man rights and gen­der; health; ed­u­ca­tion; sus­tain­able eco­nomic de­vel­op­ment; so­cial pro­tec­tion; mi­gra­tion and dis­place­ment; rural de­vel­op­ment and food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­rity; de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion and ur­ban de­vel­op­ment; cli­mate and re­source util­i­sa­tion; and re­li­gion. For each field there are prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions re­gard­ing the as­pects need­ing par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion in pol­icy and pro­gramme plan­ning.

Pop­u­la­tion data takes an in-depth look at de­mo­graphic data as the es­sen­tial ba­sis for pol­icy and pro­gramme plan­ning. They pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on birth and death rates, pop­u­la­tion struc­ture, in­clud­ing age, sex and other char­ac­ter­is­tics, and re­flect pop­u­la­tion dis­tri­b­u­tion and den­sity in var­i­ous re­gions, ur­ban­i­sa­tion trends or in­ter­na­tional mi­gra­tion. De­spite many coun­tries’ ef­forts to im­prove the data sit­u­a­tion, there con­tinue to be ma­jor data gaps that make it dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion or gauge the progress made to­wards im­ple­ment­ing the 2030 Agenda. A fun­da­men­tal source of pop­u­la­tion data are rou­tine data sys­tems such as for Civil Reg­is­tra­tion and Vi­tal Sta­tis­tics (CRVS). Prac­ti­cal tips for sup­port­ing data sys­tems in­di­cate what needs to be taken into ac­count in the pro­duc­tion, in­ter­pre­ta­tion and use of pop­u­la­tion data.

The An­nex in­cludes an in­dex of tech­ni­cal con­cepts, the con­tacts of key ac­tors for pop­u­la­tion data in nearly 100 coun­tries world­wide, and the com­plete list of sources for the hand­book.

© GIZ
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