Need for Population Stabilisation - English Essay

Need for Population Stabilisation

English Essay on "Need for Population Stabilisation" - Compositions on "Need for Population Stabilisation"

The United Nations has estimated that there are now 5,660 million people in the world and projects that the number will rise to 8,500 million by 2025 and 10,000 million by 2050. Worth asserted that there will be more than 1,000 million teenagers in the world by the year 2000. “It is because of this very rapid growth of this group of people there is a sense of Urgency.” “Having so many people moving into the child bearing years means that there is potentially a very sharp increase in the rise of world population.” The world will not be able to grow economically, prevent political instability and minimize harm to the environment unless populations are stabilised. This is a sense of urgency felt by countries all over the world, East-West, North-South, rich-poor”. Hope to come out of with a very firm broad document that is a ringing endorsement of the need to stabilise populat4on and also a ringing endorsement about the power and opportunity of women as change agents in the world.” The Clinton administration has been “uncompromising and very clear” that the fundamental goal of population stabilsation will be at the top of its which he described as the “pillar of US foreign policy”. The United States has increased its budget for population programmes to around $600 million a year and in this effort has been supported by similar increases in other countries, particularly Japan, which increased its spending tenfold from $400 million a year.

Environmental degradation due to overpopulation and overuse of natural resources has affected many countries, including China where people are migrating from the central hinterland to coastal cities. China’s “full speed growth” will eventually run into the “wall of unsustainable development,” Chinese leaders are aware of the problem. educationsight.blogspot.com Worth said war-torn Rwanda is overpopulated with an average of eight babies being born to a Rwandan woman; also he said food production has declined by 20 per cent in that country. Haiti, with most of its forests cut down, has become an ecological nightmare, and the future looks even bleaker with that country’s population of 7 million expected to double in the next 18 years. The world’s population has doubled since 1960 to today’s 5,600 million, and that 97 per cent of future population growth will be in the Third World. On the other hand that the industrialized countries of the West with 20 per cent of the global population consume two-thirds of all global resources and in the process produce four-fifth of all global pollutant and waste.

The Clinton administration worked hard and successfully to get a population stabilisation plan adopted by the UN conference held in Cairo, Egypt, in September, thereby over-turning the policy of the previous two administrations to discourage family planning. The Reagan and Bush administrations believed that the growing numbers of people in the world would not strain economies, lead to food problems or the rapid depletion of natural resources. These Republican presidents were supported by antiabortion and some religious groups. But the great bulk of population, health, women’s and environmental groups fought the policy of these administration, supported Clinton’s bid for the presidency in 1992 and were overjoyed at the Democratic president’s support of world-wide efforts to moderate population growth. The contrast between Clinton’s and the two previous administrations attitudes toward population could be clearly seen in Christopher’s remarks to the workshop. Population growth strains resources, it stunts economics growth, it generates disease; it spawns huge refugee flows and ultimately it threatens our flows and ultimately it threatens our stability,” he said. However, the Republican sweep of Congress in the November elections imperils the population prograrmmes in particular and aid to developing countries in general. Several prominent Republicans have said funds for such purposes should be reduced. That seemed to lead administration officials at the workshop to argue that aid had been a great help to many developing countries and should be continued. Where consultations led to formation of a joint committee that would work on health problems in ‘the former Soviet Union.

“The number one priority of the Russians ... is the women’s reproductive health issue. The Russians are committee both to reducing the number of surgical abortions acid increasing the number of family planning clinics., and we’re happy to work with them on that,” she said. Sally Shelton, Assistant Administrator of the Agency for International Development, argued that assistance programmes to developing countries were a major reasons for reductions in mortality and average family size.

Furthermore, US aid helped economies such as Korea, Taiwan, Tunisia, Costa Rica, Botswana, Greece and Belize develop to the point where they no longer needed help, she said. “We know aid works,” she said. The UN conference set goals of reducing infant mortality by at least one-third by the year 2000, maternal deaths by half by 2000, and establishing universal primary education and family planning services by 2015.

A draft of the action programme drawn up the after three years of negotiations in preparation for the Cairo conference recommends that $17,000 million be spent annually on population programmes by the yea 200iJ, $18,500 million in 2005, $20,500 million in 2010 and $21,700 million in 2015. The family planning portion of the total is recommended at $10,200 million annually in 2000, $11,500 million in 2005, $12,600 million in 2010 and $13800 million in 2015. The numbers are estimates prepared by UN experts of the cost of meeting all of the demand for family planning and related services in developing countries, Russia and the other former Soviet Union republics. The experts estimated that these countries now spend about $4,000 million to $5,000 million annually on such services and receive about $800 million a year in aid for these services from developed countries. That makes the developed world’s share about 20 per cent. Developed countries agreed during the preliminary negotiations to increase their share of family planning and related services to one-third. They also agreed they might go to 50 per cent or mare in the case of the poorest countries, particularly those in Africa. Sub-Saharan African has the highest futility rates and. some of the poorest countries in the world. UN experts also estimate hat the world’s population is now about 5,600 million and will rise to 8.500 million in 2025, assuring continuing moderate declines in fertility rates or total population in the developing world or former Soviet Union and none will be added in this final round of negotiations. Timothy Worth, US under-secretary of State for Global Affairs and head of the US delegation said: “establishing targets could, as has happened in some countries, degenerate not quotas and coercion to meet the quotas. And then, as you saw in some countries, the whole population programme collapse because it alienates people and doesn’t engage them.” Consequently, governments and private organization working on population issues focusing on improving the status of women, education and the like, and that has proved t. he much, much more effective and much longer lasting, than simply setting targets, he said.- In material released at the announcement of the South-South partnership. Egypt said it could supply contraceptives and mobile clinics and design education and communications programmes. Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, has experience in drastically lowering birth rates among poor and illiterate populations.

Colombia, who Roman Catholic hierarchy opposes abortion and contraceptives, has active non-governmental groups that have taken a leading role in providing family planning services. Indonesia, largely Muslim country, established a family planning commission directly responsible to the President that helped lower fertility rates dramatically. Kenya has successfully trained traditional health practitioners in birth control techniques and they have passed on this information to remote villages. Mexico faced soaring population growth in the 1970 and the government mobilized its resources to promote family panning. Thailand has had a high rate of growth in the use of contraceptives. Tunisia made a commitment 30 years ago to an integrated approach of addition education and health services to family planning programmes. Zimbabwe has a network of more than 1,000 family planning extension workers that reaches into remote parts of the country. Morocco began a campaign with doctors and nurses to provide 20 per cent of its population with family planning advice. The goal has been met and a new, goal has been set at 54 per cent.

Developing as well as industrial countries sounding a combat poverty and slow population growth as a. conference on population and development opened before some 13,000 delegates, journalists and non-governmental organisations from around the world. Most of the world’s people are poor and that population growth rates must come down to help prevent conditions from getting worse. Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, followed shortly after deserving Third World resources are being stretched thinly across huge responsibilities for rapidly growing numbers of people. But she also spoke of “serious flaws” in the wide-ranging proposals that will be considered by the International Conference on Population and Development, attended by representatives of about 170 countries.

About 90 per cent of the proposals in the 113-page draft of a “programme of action” have been approved by most participating countries during the three years of negotiations that have led up to the conference. But as Bhutto’s speech made clear, the handful of issues that have not been settled are highly controversial. The three major areas of contentious are abortion, sex education and birth control devices.

Non-governmental organisations believe they have had unprecedented input into making US government policy on slowing population growth around the world. The fingerprints of the NGOs (non-governmental organisation on the documents being debated at the conference are very clear. The committee represents about 1,000 women’s religious, medical, environmental and professional NGO groups from around the globe, ranging from those seeking to liberalize abortion to those who oppose it, in any form. Many countries have formed national NGO groups. In the United States, the US Network for Cairo was organised about three years ago and now has 300 members. Those that support expanded abortion and family planning services, of course are the ones elated at having many of their view represented in the US position at the Cairo conference. The United Nations sponsors a population conference every 10 years and the current one is the third in the series. Although past administrations have worked with some NGOs in arriving at positions to be advanced in these international negotiations, none made as strong an effort as the Clinton administration has in preparing for this conference in Cairo.

Population Bomb: Famous leader and the founder of the socialist revolution in the former USSR, V.1. Lenin, once said, “People are the greatest asset of a country.” Indeed it is always the people of a country who build a nation by their toil and sacrifice, who defend its freedom at the cost of their own lives and earn it a position of high honour by dint of their intellectual pursuits.

But when this valuable asset becomes a positive liability it breeds national poverty, retarding progress of the whole society. This happens when a country has excess of population, that is when its resources fail to cope with its? requirements. Such a state of disparity between population and resources is known as “over-0 population.”

Growth of population is an inevitable natural phenomenon witness not only in our country but all the world over. In Biblical language Adam turned out of Eden with the curse, “Go forth and multiply.” So men and women are multiplying faster than the yield from land and other means of production. This is what Malthus, the English economist also discovered and propounded. The world today is said to be over-populated. The alarming increase in the world population poses certain crucial economic, political and social problems in almost all spheres of life and to all sectors of human races. Rapid rise in world population can be judged by the following horrible facts. The total world population was only one billion in 1830, it rose to two billion in 1930, it went up to three billion in 1950, it came to four billion in 1975, and it crosses the five billion mark in 1987. The current world population is 5.5 billion and it would shoot up to 6.5 billion in 2001 and 8.5 billion in 2025. A report published by United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) states that if the current rate of growth is not checked by strong and effective measures, the population of the world will cross the ten billion mark by the year 2050. However the report says that the population of the world I could be stabilized at the 8.5 billion mark of the effective ways and means were evolved before that point in time.

The UNFPA reports that a major portion of the increase in the world population will be contributed by 35 Asian countries of which Pakistan and India contribute 35 per cent. In world 4.6 babies are born every second while 1.7 persons die. Thus there is an increase of 174 persons per minute or 2505650 persons per day or about 90 million persons per year. This trend is expected to continue for decades to come, while fifty years ago the world population was increasing only twenty million annually. United Nations population projection indicate that the level of urbanisation for the world as a whole is expected to increase to 50 per cent in the year 2005 and to reach 61 per cent by 2010. The world’s urban population grew at the rate of 2.7 per annum between 1985 and 1990.

According to a UCTAD report one of the major economic problems facing 47 of the less developed countries (LDCs) of the world was an unchecked population growth rate. Explosive population growth rate in the less developed countries (LDCs) is fuelling an unprecedented wave of human migration that could eventually overwhelm the resources bases of the advanced nations of the world.

Economists opine that despite development activities in the developing countries of the world, the number of poor people in increasing and has risen i the recent years to 1156 million from 944 million.

UNFPA report states that over one-fifth of the world population lives in absolute poverty. It is a tragic paradox of the global food situation that almost half a billion people in the third world remain hungry, while the stocks of cereals in North are breaking all records.

More than 500 million persons, mainly in Africa, South Asia and Latin America are chronically under-nourished consuming too little food to meet even minimum energy needs. Nearly 13 million children under five die every year of infections that are the direct or indirect result of hunger and malnutrition. The problem of hunger and malnutrition is connected with the problem of poverty and under development with the population growth.

All the environmental problems including global warming, deforestation, waste disposal problem, acid rain, air, water and noise pollution and low agricultural productivity are the signs of an impending environmental collapse directly related to the burgeoning human population in this planet.

As the world warmed up, the sea would rise, on a average, by two and half inches a decade. They would swell by as much as three feet by the year 2100, effecting 224,000 miles of the world’s coast line. Cyclones in Bangladesh may by a beginning of the earth warming effect.

The over-populated world is spending in a few generations the life sustaining natural inheritance created in billion of years. Even if every nation on earth attained zero population growth, it is estimated that the world population would still exceed 10 billion people before growth is stopped.

If the world population reaches 10 to 15 billion in the next century, either mankind will destroy Earth’s life support system and most of the human race with them or the living standard of the people on this planet will be permanently reduced to the poverty level in the poorest of the poor countries now. Stabilizing the world population at level could reduce the impact of the economic activity on resources and development.

Let us have a look on the population percentage of the industrialized and less industrialism countries of the world. The combined population of the eight leading industrial countries, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Russia and Japan is less than 17 per cent of the world population. In contrast there are four most densely populated but less industrialism countries, i.e., Chine, India, Indonesia and Nigeria whose population is more than 43 per cent of the world population. Of the world’s 5.5 billion people, more than 3.25 billion live in Asia. China and India the demographic giants in Asia, consists of nearly two-thirds of the total population on this continent. Considered in isolation, the USA may have sufficient means to meet the needs of her population today and also tomorrow, China may not be over-populated, as it is claimed, because of the socialist character of her production, and distribution of wealth. But most of the countries particularly of Asia and Africa, where the biggest chunk of the world’s population resides, have neither America’s vast potentialities nor China’s scientific economy. With the current world population growth rate of about 8.5% per annum, the world has a larger volume of population than its available resources can maintain. Naturally, therefore, every nation of the world is worried over the problem of over-population and is trying to strike out all possible means to combat this menace.

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