الزراعة والتنمية الريفية والغابات

Sample surveys carried out during the last four decades have proven the existence of “unmet need”, a term coined to describe a significant gap between a woman’s sexual and contraceptive behaviour and her stated fertility preference. According to the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) definition, a woman has an unmet need for contraception if she is fecund, sexually active and not using any contraceptive method, and yet does not want a child for at least two years. If a woman is pregnant or amenorrhoeic after giving birth, she is also considered to have had an unmet need if she had not wanted the pregnancy or birth either when it occurred or ever (Ross and Winfrey, 2002).

The paradigm shift in population and development that occurred at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, in 1994, from reduction in population growth for socio-economic progress to ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights as a fundamental human right and as a means for improving the quality of life, has also become apparent in the Pacific. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide the current global framework for development efforts and were formally endorsed in 2000 by 189 countries, including Pacific island countries. The importance of sexual and reproductive health was not fully articulated during the formulation of the MDGs as an explicit goal. However, during the World Summit convened in 2005, world leaders endorsed the fundamental human right of “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services” - an additional target to the MDG 5, as a result of intense lobbying by sexual and reproductive health advocates, including the Prime Minister of Tuvalu. The full integration of the MDGs into national sustainable development strategies and plans outlining an allocation of a certain percentage of the national budgets to poverty reduction is requiring a lengthy internalization and implementation process for many Pacific island countries. Part of the challenge for many of those countries has been the relevance of the poverty definition and the prevailing perception by some country leaders that “poverty of opportunity” is the more fundamental issue.

Since the late 1970s, China has been making strong efforts to accelerate the pace of modernization. Because the Chinese Government considers poor economic development and rapid population growth to be the main obstacles to modernization, it has emphasised both of those aspects.

Women are not accorded equal status with men in practically all countries of the world. Compared with men, women have very limited opportunities in most spheres of economic and social activities (Sadik, 1986; Curtin, 1982). However, there is a close association between various aspects of women’s status or position in society and demographic patterns of fertility, mortality and migration. This association is shown to be more pronounced with regard to fertility and the social processes associated with it (United Nations, 1975).

The article contains an outline of migration and taxation in the Russian Federation. The characteristics of migration, the legal and regulatory situation of migrant workers with regard to taxation, actual practices in this regard and the steps required to bridge the gap between potential tax payments from migrants and actual taxation practices are considered. Attention is paid to the reasons for irregular migration and informal employment from the points of view of both employers and migrant workers. Finally, overall conclusions and policy recommendations are provided for improving the situation and decreasing irregular migration and tax underpayment.

The article addresses the impacts of remittances in recipient countries in North and Central Asia, noting the high level of dependence of many countries of the subregion on remittances. While remittances are found to produce positive short-term benefits related to the reduction of transitory poverty, they also can contribute to negative impacts such as “Dutch Disease”, dollarization, public and private moral hazard. Few recipients make use of formal means of saving remittances, due to the lack of dedicated remittance-backed products, low levels of development of and trust in the financial sector, and lack of financial literacy among recipients of remittances. Measures to address this situation are proposed and assessed for their relevance to countries of the subregion.