Human activity is altering the planet on an unprecedented scale, the report points out. More people are using more resources with more intensity and leaving a bigger "footprint" on the earth than ever before. The report examines the close links between environmental conditions, population trends, and prospects for alleviating poverty in developing countries. It finds that expanding women's opportunities and ensuring their reproductive health and rights are critically important, both to improve the well-being of growing human populations and to protect the natural world.

This new report provides an overview of the complex interrelations between population, the environment and poverty and the operational challenges they engender. The report documents UNFPA support for a number of programme initiatives in this area, and concludes that in order to achieve the mutually reinforcing UNCED and ICPD goals, now mainstreamed in the Millennium Declaration, actions are required by both developed and developing countries.

UNFPA, in cooperation with the relevant agencies, published in early 2005 a compendium of the official outcomes of the ICPD at Ten, entitled "The World Reaffirms Cairo: Official Outcomes of the ICPD at Ten Review". The volume contains, in multiple languages as relevant, the declarations, resolutions, and action plan from the official reports of the review meetings of the UN Regional Commissions and the Commission on Population and Development, held between 2002-2004.

This publication reports on the UNFPA Panel at the XXV IUSSP International Population Conference that was held in Tours, France in July 2005. The discussions provided different perceptions on the impact of ICPD, some critical of ICPD for not paying sufficent attention to population-level demography and advocating for a much stronger focus on population dynamics and the consequences for development, the other, supportive of the Cairo Agenda, stressing the important accomplishments since ICPD, while addressing some of the constraints faced.