(d) Lower population growth and depopulation in recent years

it is clear that the urban population is increasing in step with the depopulation of the countryside.

On the whole, therefore, the problem of illiteracy appears to have shifted towards cities and the urban population, possibly as a result of migratory movements and the depopulation of rural areas provoked by terrorist violence.

But are European countries with lagging productivity willing to accept depopulation? Alternatively, are they willing to face the pain of internal devaluation, a process that failed under the gold standard and is failing under the euro?

In this way, Romania is moving ahead in its drive to develop and implement a broad ranging mountain policy and sustainable mountain development programme that will address the urgent issues of land degradation, depopulation and the decline in mountain agriculture.

But Japan s government needs to think big and creatively. If towns suffering from depopulation before they were destroyed are transformed in their reconstruction, they could mark the emergence of a new model for regional development that can decentralize Japan s Tokyo centric economy.