On top of the existing 103 million urban migrants, Chinese cities will face an influx of another 243 million migrants by 2025, taking the urban population up to nearly 1 billion people. In the medium and large cities, about half the population will be migrants, which is almost three times the current level.

China’s government influences the pattern of urbanisation through the Hukou permanent residence registration system, land-sale policies, infrastructure investment and the incentives offered to local government officials. The other factors influencing migration of people from rural provincial areas to large cities are employment, education, business opportunities and higher standard of living.

Of major concern in China is its growing “flowing population” a large number of people moving from the countryside to the city, from underdeveloped economic areas to developed areas, and from the central and western regions to the eastern coastal region, as a result of fast-paced reform-era economic development and modern agricultural practices that have reduced the need for a large agricultural labor force.

Although residency (Hukou) requirements have been relaxed to a degree, the floating population is not officially permitted to reside permanently in the receiving towns and cities.

As early as 1994, it was estimated that China had a surplus of approximately 200 million agricultural workers, and the number was expected to increase to 300 million in the early twenty-first century and to expand even further into the long-term future.

It was reported in 2005 that the floating population had increased from 70 million in 1993 to 140 million in 2003, thus exceeding 10 percent of the national population and accounting for 30 percent of all rural laborers.

According to the 2000 national census, population flow inside a province accounted for 65 percent of the total while that crossing provincial boundaries accounted for 35 percent. Young and middle-aged people account for the vast majority of this floating population; those between 15 and 35 years of age account for more than 70 percent. (Source: Wikipedia)

Vincent Kitio, Energy Adviser, Nairobi, Kenya addressing the 15th session UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 2007 noted that over one billion people are currently living in slums throughout the developing world with intolerable living conditions in terms of water and sanitation service provision and lack of access to reliable energy services. This trend, he said makes it patently clear that if we fail to achieve the MDGs in towns and cities, we will simply fail to achieve them at all. Affordable and reliable energy supply to the urban poor will be critical to attaining these goals.

Our country has also had a history of uneven rural/urban development. However, the current government in its development programme has been correctly focusing on the issue of rural development in its bid to narrow that gap particularly in the areas of education, agriculture and health.

With respect to the latter scores of new hospitals and health centres have been built or refurbished in rural communities, including the hinterland by this government. And it is not just about buildings but properly staffed and equipped health facilities. Today most rural and hinterland communities which hitherto never were serviced by doctors are in receipt of such services. The recently constructed diagnostic centres built with Cuban technical assistance and support, are a tremendous boost rural health care.

The latest member to the family of healthcare institutions is the Lethem Hospital which boasts modern healthcare facilities including surgical theatres, in-patient and out-patient facilities, a pharmacy and a laboratory.

However, President Jagdeo has correctly pointed out these positive developments did not spring up overnight but rather is part of the government’s commitment to push development throughout the country.

“We are going to invest in that vision (better healthcare); it is not something that we just came up with yesterday; the PPP government when it got into office made a deep commitment to do this and we may have taken longer than we wished, but we had many hurdles along the road,” he said.