NIGERIA is one of the few countries that will produce the largest population increases in the world in the next 40 years according to the United Nations, Empowered Newswire has reported. A recent report from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) ahead of next month's Rio+20 summit, disclosed that it is from Africa and Asia that 86 per cent of all growth in the world's urban population over the next four decades will come from.The UN also expressed concern that 'this unprecedented increase will pose new challenges in terms of jobs, housing and infrastructure,' for such nations like Nigeria. On the other hand, it also expressed the hope that 'this unprecedented increase in urban population will provide new opportunities to improve education and public services in Africa and Asia, as more concentrated populations become easier to reach.' According to the report, 'the largest increases in urban population are expected in the following countries: India, China, Nigeria, the United States and Indonesia. Over the next four decades, India will add another 497 million to its urban population, China 341 million, Nigeria 200 million, the US 103 million and Indonesia 92 million.'Over all on continental levels, Africa's urban population will increase from 414 million to over 1.2 billion by 2050 while that of Asia will soar from 1.9 billion to 3.3 billion, according to the 2011 Revision of the World Urbanisation Prospects, produced by the UN Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.According to a UN statement 'the projected increase in urban populations in India and Nigeria in the next 40 years will be higher than that of the past four decades.'Commenting, the Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in DESA, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, said 'what we are seeing is the very rapid growth of megacities,' noting that in 1970, only 39 million people lived in so-called megacities with 10 million or more inhabitants, in other words, less than three per cent of the world's population at that time.By 2011, 359 million people lived in these megacities ' the equivalent to 9.9 per cent of the urban population of the world. In 2025, some 630 million will live in these megacities ' some 13.6 per cent of the world's urban population by then, he stated.Also commenting during the launch of the report, the chief of DESA's Population Estimates and Projections Section, Gerhard Heilig, noted that the revision contains the most recent data available since it is based on figures from the 2010 census rounds, including from India and China.The UN said an initial analysis found that among 450 urban areas with one million or more inhabitants in 2011 (representing 1.4 billion people), 60 per cent, or about 890 million people, are located in regions exposed to at least one major type of natural disaster risk.With half of humanity living in cities today, urbanisation is a critical issue for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, which will take place from 20 to 22 June in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Cities are where the pressures of migration, globalisation, economic development, social inequality, environmental pollution and climate change are most directly felt, according to DESA. Yet, at the same time, they are the engines of the world economy and centres of innovation where many solutions to global problems are being piloted.'The launch of the World Urbanisation Prospects is timely because world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, civil society organisations and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet,' stated the Secretary-General of Rio+20, Sha Zukang, in another news release.'We expect world leaders to come up with concrete action plans to realize sustainable cities for the future we want,' he added.
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