H. E. Seyed Mojtaba Arastou, ECO Secretary General, attending the UNESCAP-UNFPA joint meeting on population control in the Asia and Pacific region, discussed about the position of ECO in this regard.

           Mr. Arastou on his statement said that: It is an honor and great pleasure for me to address this august gathering of the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference. 

The Economic Cooperation Organization is a regional, intergovernmental organization of ten countries, covering 7.9 million sq. km with more than 370 million population, growing at an average rate of 2.1 percent, set to promote sustainable economic development of the region.

The ECO countries represent a wide diversity of demographic structures along with varying economic structures. Poverty and hunger are widely spread across the countries of ECO with concentration in the rural areas of the region. Particularly, transition economies of ECO have experienced remarkable declines in the output during the 1990s. In the last decade, the average annual growth rate of transition economies of ECO was negative ranging between 0.5 percent and 10.4 percent. On the other hand, the developing countries of ECO have been able to achieve only modest growth rates, which are hardly sufficient to meet the challenges of globalization era. 

Although there are positive signs for recovery of the growth in the recent years, particularly strengthened by the increasing oil prices in 2000, the challenges faced by the regional countries are still ahead.

The region has a young population structure; with 57,2 percent of population is under the age of 24. The population of adolescents and youth will increase for the next 10-15 years. Depending on the rate of economic growth today’s young population and the young cohorts of future will face development opportunities as well as challenges.

It should be noted that relatively high level of fertility and mortality rates is common for most of countries in the region due to deficiencies in the reproductive health and family planning services.

           Both internal and international migration is common within the ECO region. Due to several factors like stagnant economic conditions, migration has become one of the main concerns of the national socio-economic policies.

Despite the great variety of differences in the population dynamics across the countries of ECO, it can generally be stated that the ECO countries still need more help in designing, implementing and improving national population policies, family planning schemes and health services as a whole.

          Needless to state that population factors have an important role in the pursuit of sustainable development. As it is stated in the Bali Declaration, “sustainable development requires that the interrelationship between population, resources, the environment and the development should be fully recognized, properly managed and brought into a harmonized dynamic balance”. The ICDP goals also emphasize the linkages between population and development. 

Here, I’d like to reaffirm the ECO’s mandate as a regional organization, as stated in its main Charter, “to promote conditions for sustainable development and to raise on this basis the standard of living and quality of life in the Member States through mobilization of economic and social potentials of the region”.

We have progressed considerably on this path by improving regional cooperation in the main sectors, trade and transportation. Our members from Central Asia as well as Afghanistan and Azerbaijan are considered as “land-locked small economy transition countries”. Progress in trade and transportation sectors will certainly contribute to alleviate the poverty in the region. But there is still more ahead of us. However, we should also acknowledge the financial and technical capacity limitations within our members.

In this connection, it should be stressed that ECO has benefited from valuable experience, contributions and assistance of UN institutions, particularly UNESCAP and UNFPA in its activities. But given the limited resources of ECO countries, there is a need for additional financial and technical support of the international bodies to achieve eradication of poverty in ECO region.

While appreciating the world community, specially UN system and donor countries and organizations’ valuable contributions to Afghanistan’s relief and reconstruction process, I would like to state that ECO’s involvement in these efforts would further promote this process of reconstruction. This august session is requested to kindly to contribute to ECO activities in this regard.