BEWARE THE POPULATION ALARMISTS

For years, the UN Population Fund has been seeking to justify its existence by issuing reports claiming that we must reduce birth rates in poor countries in order to achieve “sustainable development”.
In reality, global living standards improved dramatically over the past century despite a near-quadrupling of human numbers.
The idea of ‘overcrowding’ conjure images of hungry children, unchecked disease, squalid living conditions – real in today’s world but the proper name for those conditions is ‘human poverty’.
Between 1900 and 2000, human numbers almost quadrupled, leaping from 1.6 billion to six billion. But global GDP per capita quintupled over this same period.
Food production has steadily outstripped population growth
Over the 20th century, average life expectancy doubled from around 30 years to more than 60 years and infant mortality rates declined around the world. – due to unprecedented and extraordinary improvements in material living standards
No need for governments to alter our patterns of reproduction. Moreover, a part from morally reprehensible coercive schemes such as China’s one child policy, it is not clear the government population policies cn do much to change human numbers anyway.
No causative link between availability of contraception and fertility levels. The rate of contraception use is identical in Jordon and Japan, but Jordon’s fertility rate is more than 3 times higher.
In 1974, mexico started a national family planning programme. Brazil had never implemented such a programme but during the following 25 years, Mexican and Brazilian fertiliy levels fell at nearly identical rates.
Truth is that parental preference is the key determinant of family size, be it in rich or poor countries.
Parents around the world have been opting for fewer children since the 1960s
The poor need economic freedom so that they may raise themselves up, not sterile UN schemes.

Review:
Reports of poverty-related conditions in Africa and other developing countries have become periodic features in many of the world’s news, so much so that we’ve almost become nonchalant upon seeing images of starving children. Around a century ago, living conditions in LDCs around the world are generally comparable. Today, countries in Africa lag far behind in terms of development with nearly 70% of the continents population living with below US $2 a day. What has happened over the past 100 years that caused such a huge disparity in growth?

It is definitely more than just a problem of high birth rates that leads to poverty. No doubt the large population will put pressure on and exacerbate existing problems in the country but to put the blame entirely on overpopulation is simply overlooking other significant factors that the United Nations is obviously keen to avoid.

I believe that the cycle of poverty in which many African countries are trapped in has a lot to do with the flaws and inequalities of the world trading system. Many felt they were being pressurized into unfair agreements by the economic strength of the richer countries, in particular the USA and the EU. These unfair agreements usually have detrimental impacts on their economy.

Trade has the potential to be extremely beneficial in terms of lifting countries out of povery. It has been estimated that in Africa, a 1% increase in exports would generate US $70 million, about five times the amount Africa receives in aid. This export production can also concentrate income directly in the hands of the poor as opposed to aid channels. However, Africa’s share of world trade has fallen considerably from around 4% in 1980 to less than 1.5% by 1997.

Reducing birth rates in this case then, will not solve the problem of poverty if this issue of unfair trade is not addressed. Unfortunately, this problem will prove hard to solve due to reluctance of rich countries to change their policies that may adversely affect their own economy. With the high dependence of poor nations on aid from these rich nations, it makes it hard for them not to simply agree with the conditions imposed on them. Perhaps the first step UN can take to help in the fight against poverty is to give every country an equal voice, instead of letting rich countries dominate and then point its fingers at birth rates in poor nations.

royce

22/06 Forever!
1:24 AM