World at 7 billion: A crowded, warm urban planet

On 31st October this year, world population reached seven billion. This is an important landmark in the history of mankind as this huge number of people vindicates both a success as well as an impending challenge for a sustainable world. The 'World at 7 Billion' campaign was observed all over the world as a public event to draw attention to the importance of population issues in the context of overall socio-economic development plans and programmes, and the need for proper planning for a sustainable global population. Hence, this article provides some messages along with a few critical facts, figures and prognosis of global population trends as well as an analysis of global population challenges. The reason is population touches on number, gender, sex, parenthood, religion, economy and politics- all the contentious aspects of humanity. Start a debate on the topic, and the temperature in the room quickly warms up. No wonder, experts contend that population is driving global warming and warmer areas of the world have high population growth. Global population has doubled since 1968 when a movement to address population issues began under the auspices of United Nations. By 1969, after lobbying at the congress by US military legend General William Draper and intellectual spearhead from Swedish Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal, the donors established a specialised UN agency called UN Population Fund. The dynamism reached its culmination at the 1st world population conference in Bucharest in 1974. The Bucharest consensus called for voluntary family planning and a mix of development instruments as the most direct, least costly route that would reduce demand for higher number of children among LDCs, which was both a cause and symptom of poverty. When Robert McNamara entered his office as the World Bank president, he made it known to the board that henceforth, the global lender would pursue programme loan for population planning only to find out in his second day that it had only staff member who could be truly regarded as a "population specialist" sitting at a lonely corner of the 18th street Washington DC building. Throughout his tenure in the 70's, he remained a stalwart advocate repeating his concern over world population and later began to sound like a cracked HMV gramophone record as mentioned by his colleagues. Since then, world population increased and would continue to grow till mid-century, despite the dramatic decline of average number of children per women. Nearly this entire momentum of population-97 out of every 100 people, occurred and would occur in less developed countries. The current rate of growth is adding 78 million people in the world every year. This is partly contributing to food and energy crisis, rich-poor divide, greater low intensity conflict across fragile and resource-poor states. People under the age of 25 make up 45 per cent of the world population and mostly living in developing countries. A country's population situation analysis is configured by its total size, the age distribution or demographic structure and spatial distribution of rural and urban divide. Its population changes are determined by the Rate of its Natural Increase, which is Crude birth rate minus Crude death rate plus the net migration rate. Among the key messages from the UN, the seven billion people is counting on each other for a sustainable world in the future as the population would continue grow and may reach 9.0 billion, if unchecked. Secondly, poverty and inequality are critically linked with population growth and age structure. Thirdly, young people would forge the future as they are interconnected with technology and movement. Fourthly, nearly 2 billion people will be urban and health of the planet will be determined by its climate shaped by our carbon footprint. Climate change not only derails and delays anti-poverty efforts in climate vulnerable countries but also exacerbates existing poverty-prone areas. Global trends Globally, life expectancy drastically increased, people are living longer and healthier lives, and couples are choosing to have fewer children. But huge inequities in health and demographic indicators persist between rich and poor countries. While many richer countries are now concerned about low fertility and ageing, the poorest nations struggle to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations. And more people than ever before are vulnerable to food insecurity, water shortages, and climate-related disasters. Eminent ecologist Ehrlich predicting famine of environment from "The Population bomb" in 1970 as follows: "No geological event in a billion years has posed a threat to terrestrial life comparable to that of human over population". Whether we can live together on a healthy planet will depend on the choices and decisions we make now. A central question posed today is that are we on course to keep a sustainable population or beyond the limit if 6.5 billion, the threshold figure estimated in Earth summit back in 1992. Evidently the latter and heading faster to hit 8 billion soon as many believe climate change is now a certain phenomenon. How did we reach 7 billion? As one can understand from the above table that since middle of the 20th century, time taken to get to the next billion populations drastically shortened in its span. This was the result of rapid improvement in vaccination and medicine for infectious and communicable disease reducing mortality in many tropical areas, located mostly in the regions of high birth rate developing countries. With in this 7 billion, the bulk of the world's population is contributed by rising population in Asia and Africa who went through their first and second stage of their demographic transition in the 60s and 70s with high birth rate and declining death rate. Due to this population dynamics, the 21st century will probably witness the following path in its horizon as predicted by United Nations special advisor Jaffrey Sachs. Firstly, it will be an Asian century as the bulk of the population and economic growth will be taking place in Asia. Secondly, it will be an urban century due to swelling number of cities and urban population. Thirdly, it will be a century of convergence of income and technological diffusion in developing countries. And finally, it may very well be a century of climate change. A strange paradox hinting either a "perfect storm" or a perfect world only to be a "fait accompli" later. Almost the entire growth of world population in future may be absorbed in the cities of the developing world for next 40 years and they seem unprepared to take up such rapidly expanding demand for civic amenities and services. This may very well witness slumisation and urbanisation of poverty where the super-rich and the super-poor live in close vicinity, a unique feature among LDCs as predicted by President Kennedy's advisor W. W Rostow in 60's. The major portion of the urban growth is driven by rural-urban migration in 70s and 80s and agglomeration of cities from manufacturing-based employment since Washington Consensus of 1990s. By 2025, the world will have 8 more mega cities where five of them will be coming from Asia alone. Population prognosis The current world population of 7 billion is projected to reach 9.3 billion by the middle of this century, according to the medium variant of the 2010 revision of official United Nations projections. Much of this increase is projected to come from the high-fertility countries, which comprise mostly African counties (39 out of the 55 countries in the continent), while nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America. Low-fertility countries include most countries in Europe, some in Latin America and North East Asia. Fertility levels matter as it determines current and future population growth. For example, the size of German and Ethiopian populations is similar - at nearly 82 million. While Germany's fertility is 1.4 below replacement level and that of Ethiopia is 4.6, the European nation's population would decline to 75 million and Ethiopia's would double to 145 million by 2050. A closer example may be, in 1971, Pakistan's population was quite less than 75 million. Bangladesh and Pakistan had a fertility of around 6.5. While Bangladesh's fertility constantly fell, it remained high for few decades in Pakistan. As a result, Pakistan's population now stands at 165 million as opposed to Bangladesh's 150 million. Countries with high population growth are as varied as China, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Iran, Thailand and France, account for 75 per cent of the population living in low-fertility countries. Intermediate-fertility countries are located in India, the USA, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico and Egypt. However, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ghana, Yemen, Mozambique and Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, Mali, Niger account for 75 per cent of the population of high-fertility countries. The highest potential for future population growth is in high-fertility countries from 1.2 billion to 4.2 billion. During the same period, the population of the low-fertility countries would decline by about 20 per cent, from 2.9 to 2.4 billion. Bangladesh is regarded as a success, yet a surprise story in family planning and remains a unique exception among LDC group as its fertility rate fell by more than 60 per cent since 1970s. First family planning project began in 1965 under Field Marshall Ayub Khan, funded by Sweden involving government and FPAP. In 1972, World Bank evaluation rated low (18) mean score of programme effort and classified it under Socio-economic setting (SES 3) category indicating poor prospect for success. The movement was jumpstarted by late president General Ziaur Rahman, domiciliary service carried out by 28,000 field workers and MCH-FP staffs brought about a silent revolution, driven by women. The current bottleneck causing high unmet need amidst 60 per cent contraceptive use rate is more from system side than the demand side. Its population none-the-less would grow due to population momentum, youthful age structure and slow decline of fertility among the pockets of populations. A large cohort of youthful population will be entering in reproductive age and also to the labor force. This opens the demographic window of opportunity for Bangladesh likewise in many developing countries, i.e. India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and a handful of poorer nations. But only those with right strategy, i.e. low fertility, investment in human capital and economic dynamism with global competitiveness would harness the dividend as did East Asian miracle economies such as South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand etc. Among the Asian Newly Industrialised economies (NIEs), family size declined as working age population spurred against lower number of dependents backed with huge foreign direct investment. Edward mason, et.al has shown that a third of East Asia's income per capita growth from 1970 to 1990 was due to productivity growth from "demographic dividend" which requires multiple policy direction and response from government and private sectors in sequence. Many experts are misconstrued with this notion and seem oblivious that neither the "window" is automatic nor the "dividend" is guaranteed from favorable demographic transition in any given country. Worse, the window opens only once in a lifetime, but closes rapidly as mentioned in the 2011 ADB outlook. When young people are imbued with health, education and skills, they can realise their potential with decent work that can spur power force for positive change and economic growth. The key to this in Bangladesh is to turn its population with strategic directions, investment among youth and adolescents, especially girls to break the vicious cycle of poverty. A unique feature of this country is its high adolescent fertility, associated with persistent early marriage for girls. The adolescent fertility rate in Bangladesh of 123 per 1,000 women is similar to that of many sub-Saharan African countries and has not decreased significantly for decades. Without a further decrease of the adolescent fertility rate, it is hard to see how further progress can be made in maternal health, family planning and increased participation of women and girls in economic and social spheres. In Bangladesh, population increased quite rapidly with average growth of 2.5 -3.0 per cent per annum from 1960 to 1975. As a result, within the span of three decades, population doubled. With an estimated population of 148-150 million, it has the highest density of population in the world (950 person/sq. kilometer). By 2020, the country population will be 40 per cent urban and Dhaka will be the second largest city in the world with a population of 18 million and highest primacy index among world's urban metropolises. Population and food security in Bangladesh, a heavily populated yet land scarce country, are of utmost importance and relevance. The sharp rise in food prices in international market since 2007 has highlighted that fact. To further worsen our apprehension, the recent alert by FAO and World Bank that high food price and associated inflation may continue for some time. The devastating flood in Thailand apparently has already damaged 80 per cent of its crop this year, which is terrible news to the already soaring commodity market. In 1975, Bangladesh's crop production was 10 million tonnes per year with a population of approximately 75 million. In 2010, it produced nearly 30 million tonnes with a doubling of its population. There is a declining trend of agriculture's share in GDP as crop and cereal dominates in agriculture next to fisheries and livestock. The rice productivity has increased three-fold, but not competitive compared to Thailand or Vietnam. Due to demographic and economic transition, the nations' per capita food intake has increased, as there is a rising youth and prime age population in contrast to high child dependency in mid-70s. To make the matter worse, the country is losing 80,000 hactres of fertile land every year for urban infrastructure and housing needs. Its crop, rain-fed irrigation, siltation, germination, intermittent natural floods are extremely climate dependent and as such vulnerable to climate change. Non farm activities are required to generate employment. This has eroded clean water, arable land, natural vegetation, fisheries, forests, and oxbow lakes to an alarming level. So, this requires a high-tech agricultural research, prudent land acquisition, irrigation, better-designed rural-urban extension plan and rapid population stabilisation. Source: UN Population Division ........................................ Tauhid Alam is Strategic Directions Officer at UNFPA in Dhaka and can be reached at: touhidalam@hotmail.com