What is fate of population bombardment&why not to penalise?

Question

What is fate of population bombardment&why not to penalise?

Answer 1

Population Bombardment :

Efforts to slow down the growth of the world's population by linking poverty relief to women's rights and access to birth control are working, the UN says.

But it says that a lack of money, gaps in provision and gender bias are making further progress difficult to achieve.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) uses its 2004 annual report to sound a warning about the mounting challenges it sees.

The report is a review of progress made since the 1994 international conference on population and development in Egypt.

  The lifetime risk of a woman dying in pregnancy or childbirth in West Africa is 1 in 12. In developed regions, the comparable risk is 1 in 4,000

UNFPA annual report  

The State Of World Population 2004 is entitled The Cairo Consensus At Ten: Reproductive Health And The Global Effort To End Poverty.

It says the Cairo plan, adopted by 179 countries, sought to balance the world's people with its resources, improve women's status, and ensure universal access to reproductive health care, including family planning.

The plan "gave priority to investing in people and broadening their opportunities, rather than to reducing population growth."

Among the changes the report notes is an increase in the use of modern contraception, from 55% of couples in 1994 to 61% today. But it says about 201 million women still have an unmet need for effective contraception.

It says: "Meeting their needs would cost about $3.9bn a year, and prevent 23 million unplanned births, 22m induced abortions, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths and 1.4 million infant deaths."

Resource shortfall

Implementing the Cairo agenda costs money, it says, but resources are short. Donors agreed in 1994 to provide $6.1bn a year for population and reproductive health programmes by 2005, a third of the total needed.

In 2002, the last year for which figures are available, contributions were about $3.1bn, barely half the total promised.

In 2003 developing countries themselves were spending about $11.7bn on the Cairo agenda. But much of that was spent by a few large countries, leaving the poorest ones heavily dependent on outside help.

The reality means more than 350 million couples still lack access to a full range of family planning services, and 529,000 women die annually from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, most of them preventable.

Five million new HIV infections occurred in 2003: nearly half of all infected adults are women, and nearly three-fifths of those in sub-Saharan Africa.

In some areas in the region 25% of the workforce is HIV-positive. The report says studies show that if 15% of a country's population is HIV-positive, its GDP will decline by 1% annually.

The report spells out some of the pressures of population growth:

about 2.8 billion people, two in five of those alive, survive on the equivalent of less than $2 a day

about half the world's original forests have now been cleared, and three-quarters of its fish stocks are being exploited at or beyond sustainable limits

half a billion people live in countries where water is scarce: by 2025, the number is expected to be 2.4-3.4 billion people

a majority of the world's people will be living in cities by 2007, and by 2030 all regions will have urban majorities.

The report says the Earth's population is likely to increase from 6.4 billion people today to 8.9 billion by 2050, with the 50 poorest countries tripling in total numbers to 1.7bn people.

It says poverty dramatically increases a woman's chances of dying: "The lifetime risk of a woman dying in pregnancy or childbirth in West Africa is 1 in 12. In developed regions, the comparable risk is 1 in 4,000."

India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2050, while some countries will shrink by nearly 40%, according to new research.

The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) says the next half century will see wild swings in population sizes.

It predicts that the number of people on Earth will reach 9.3bn by 2050, compared with 6.3bn today.

Britain's population is likely to overtake that of France, while the US will grow by nearly 50%, it says.

The Washington-based PRB says the general trend will be for Western developed nations to decline slightly in numbers - the US being the major exception - while developing states continue to expand rapidly.

PREDICTED POPULATIONS, 2050

1 India,                                                      1,628m  

2 China,                                                     1,437m  

3 United States,                                           420m  

4 Indonesia,                                                   308m

5 Nigeria,                                                       307m  

Source: PRB (2004 position in brackets)  

The organisation says that at present "nearly 99% of all population increase takes place in poor countries".

India is expected to grow from 1.08bn to 1.63bn people, overtaking China, which is forecast to reach 1.44bn from 1.3bn currently.

The US will remain the third biggest nation, according to the report, growing to 420m from 294m people.

Britain is expected to grow only slightly, to 65m, from 59.5m, while many of its European neighbours decline.

In Eastern Europe the decline will be marked, if current trends continue.

Bulgaria could lose 38% of its 7.8m inhabitants, with Russia declining by 17% - some 25m people.

Anomalies affect prediction

The projections are based on infant mortality rates, life expectancy, fertility rates and age structure, as well as factors such as contraception and Aids rates.

What the study cannot predict is how migration between nations may affect population growth.

  So many demographic anomalies exist that the future is uncertain

Carl Haub

Population Reference Bureau  

Carl Haub, the chairman of population information at the PRB, admits it is not possible to know exactly how the world will grow. "So many demographic anomalies exist that the future is uncertain," he said.

Most recent population studies agree, however, that humanity will grow rapidly, at least in the near future, and that the planet's resources will be increasingly stretched.

The UN published a recent study, whose "medium-case" scenario was that the world would reach 9bn by 2300 - 250 years later than PRB predict.

In March the US Census Bureau said world growth was actually slowing, and that Aids meant Africa's population might actually begin to decline.

Measures For Control :

- Change the mind-set of the society at large in favour of population control and promote public awareness about negative fall-outs of population growth.

-The law alone would not be able to check the population rise and it was the duty of concerned citizens to play an active role in the population control drive.

-Social evils as a major cause of the population explosion, Ms. Patil said while early marriages had led to high maternal and infant mortality rates, female foeticide had disturbed the s*x ratio in several communities.Medical and Health Minister Digambar Singh said the State Government was taking steps for checking population growth by ensuring effective delivery of family welfare programmes. He said institutional deliveries were being promoted and cash assistance was provided to economically weaker pregnant women.

Penalising methods have been tested in the past by some of the countries ,but could not achieve the desired results.Rather these measures proved to be counter productive and resulted in fall of the governments as well.

Therefore, the following actions may be considered :

- Spreading Literacy, which will ultimately teach the public the pros and cons of population rise;

- Incentives for small family ,like low interest rate on Bank loans , rebate in Income tax etc.

- Education of third or subsequent child may be made chargeable fo government employees

- Counseling and advice centres for creating awareness amongest the masses;

- Utilisation of electronis media for spreading the message of Small family, Happy Family.