and international institutions will fail in their efforts to reduce
hunger and poverty, and to protect the environment, unless they
place the reduction of population increase high on their agenda.
Population policy should be treated as an integral part of development.
This is the conclusion reached by Anthony Young writing in Geographical
Journal (171, 2005, 83-95). Download
At the Summit
on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002, the nations of
the world undertook to reduce poverty and hunger to half their
current levels by 2015. It is already clear that these targets
will not be met. Evidence from developing countries, particularly
Africa, show that advances made through agricultural research
and investment in rural development are being counteracted, in
some countries nullified, by the effects of population increase.
Spare land is not an
Contrary to estimates by
FAO, in most countries there is no more 'spare land', areas which
could be sustainably cultivated but are not yet under agriculture.
Most of what remains is under rainforest, clearance of which is
strongly opposed on environmental grounds. (See Spare
Advances achieved through
agricultural research, however, are slowing. The annual increase
in crop yields, 2--3% during the Green Revolution, is now 1%.
Malawi: a case study
An example of a problem
country is Malawi. Forty
years ago its population was 3 million: it has now passed 11 million.
Average farm size is less than 0.5 ha, soil fertility has been
greatly reduced, farmers cannot afford fertilizer, so crop yields
are low. There are simply no viable development options left to
its Government nor to the rural people.
Awareness and policies
of international institutions
There is an imbalance of
attitudes. The UNFPA and other population-based institutions constantly
stress the need to reduce rates of increase. But institutions
concerned with hunger, poverty and environment (World Bank, FAO,
IFPRI, UNEP, etc.) take future population increase as given, as
an external variable.
What can be done? Linking
Cairo with Johannesburg
The only long-term solution
it to link the aims of the Johannesburg World Summit to the recommendations
of the UN 1993 Cairo Conference on Population and Development.
This set out an ethically acceptable package of measures for reducing
population growth: improve the education and status of women,
and make family planning services available to all.
Unless greater efforts are
made to check the growth of population, then poverty, hunger and
the suffering these cause will continue. A fundamental change
in attitudes is needed. Governments, aid agencies and development
instutions should follow the road from Cairo to Johannesburg.
the Geographical Journal paper (PDF)
Publisher's Note This
is an electronic version of an article published in the Geographical
Journal. Complete citation information for the final version of
the paper, as published in the print edition of the Geographical
Journal, is available on the Blanckwell Synergy online delivery
service, accesible via the Journal's website at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0016-7398
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on (topic of this page) is given in Chapter 14, Population, poverty
and conflict and Chapter 15, Awareness, attitudes and action,
of Land Resources: Now and for