Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1993 TAG: 9307070363
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EDITH M. LEDERER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
Tensions are growing as the haves and have-nots and different ethnic groups rub shoulders to a greater extent than ever before, it said. And countries are not doing anything to alleviate the economic disparities which prompt most migration, said Dr. Nafis Sadik, the fund's executive director.
"The potential of this crisis is really explosive," Sadik said.
She added that population growth and a widening economic gap between rich and poor "could result in mass migration."
The fund said people within developing countries are pouring into overcrowded cities in unprecedented numbers, and most of the estimated 100 million international migrants moved from a poor developing country to a richer developing nation.
That includes an estimated 37 million people who have fled violence, drought, environmental destruction and other disasters, it said in its annual State of World Population Report.
The report said most international migration is from one Third World country to another. It did not give an overall figure for migration from developing nations to industrialized nations.
Sadik said problems are evident in Germany, France and former Yugoslavia where people are being rejected by the mainstream of society because they are ethnically or culturally different.
Many countries which espouse very liberal policies seem to take a different position "when it comes to their own particular situations in ethnic or ethnicity issues," she said. "They find it difficult to perceive of a society in which they would have to deal with different groups."
She said it is foolish to believe that all countries are going to open their borders or that industrialized countries will be sending a massive amount of resources to the developing nations.
"But I think there has to be some equalization of economic relationships because the basic, fundamental reason for moving of people is really economic," she said.
The $66 billion annually in remittances from international migrants to their families at home are second in value only to oil and larger than total overseas development assistance, the report said.
But rural poverty, high fertility and environmental degradation in developing countries drives about 20 million to 30 million of the world's poorest people to urban areas each year, the U.N. says
The 1993 global population of 5.57 billion is projected to increase to 6.25 billion in 2000, 8.5 billion in 2025 and 10 billion in 2050, the fund said. It said the world's six largest "urban agglomerations" in 1990 were Mexico City, 20.2 million people; Tokyo, 18.1 million; Sao Paulo, Brazil, 17.4 million; New York, 16.2 million; Shanghai, China, 13.4 million; and Los Angeles, 11.9 million.
by CNB