by Virginia Kapembeza
The controversy surrounding the recent United Nations population conference in Cairo highlights the explosive nature of population control and the wide divisions between those favouring control and those against it.
The nine-day International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which ended in the Egyptian capital in the middle of September, became the lightning rod of the debate which has been raging on for several decades with no clear winner.
Countries in southern Africa, which participated in the conference that culminated in a 113-page 20- year plan to curb birth rates, have had their fair share of the controversy.
For example, in Zimbabwe whose family planning programme has won worldwide praise, a number of legislators have condemned the government-backed birth control measures.
A few days before the population conference began, a number of Zimbabwean legislators slammed the family planning programmes urging that they be banned as they were interfering with nature and the country’s population growth.
Speaking in Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly, traditional leader, Chief Jonathan Mangwende accused family planning advocates of trying to play God.
“Population is the most controversial subject in development,” says Paul Harrison, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global 500 Award winner. “And the relation between population and the environment is probably the most contentious topic of all.”
Rapid population growth has proceeded side by side with land degradation in most of Africa. But in some areas like Machakos in Kenya, farmers have responded successfully to rising population, building terraces, planting trees, and boosting farm yields and food production, says Harrison.
In southern Africa, the increasing population is multiplying the effects of all environmental problems in the region, according to a new book, State of the Environment in Southern Africa. With an average three percent growth rate annually, the region’s population — estimated at 136 million – is expected to double in 24 years. Southern Africa, which contains just over two percent of the world’s population, is expected to contribute about six percent of global population growth between now and the year 2050.
Rapid population growth increases pressure on resources, forcing communities to adopt unsustainable practices to get food, fuel and shelter just to survive.
It is generally accepted that the best way to decrease population growth is to reduce poverty and increase standards of living. Unless poverty is reduced, population growth and pressure on resources will continue to increase.
The African National Congress, which leads South Africa’s government of national unity, has highlighted the need to tackle poverty and help curb environmental degradation.
“Without an effective plan to deal with grinding poverty that exacerbates the environmental degradation of this already beleaguered ecology, then all of the fences, anti-poaching squads, and water purification tablets in the world will do nothing to save South Africa’s natural resources for future generations,” says an ANC Environmental policy document.
In Malawi, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says the country, with over 10 million people, has an annual population growth rate of 3.2 percent. Population density is very high — at least 166 persons per square kilometre — but life expectancy is only 48 years, among the lowest in the world.
“The many factors contributing to poor health are: poverty; high illiteracy rates, especially among women; too early, too many, too frequent-and too late pregnancies; and a high fertility rate of 6.7,” says Justin Malewezi, the vice-president of Malawi.
It is for these factors that Malawi has identified poverty alleviation as a priority area in its development programme.
Another area that needs to be addressed is job creation. The Malawi News, a weekly newspaper, says an estimated 145 000 school leavers seek jobs every year. Apart from that, shortages of schools, hospitals, clinics and accommodation are rife.
Botswana’s annual population growth rate of 3.5 is causing concern to the government which does not yet have a population policy. Patrick Balopi, the Minister for Labour and Home Affairs, says there has been a marked increase in unwanted and teenage pregnancies (three-quarters of total drop-out rate from secondary school) sometimes ending in botched abortions. Almost half the population is below the age of 15 – portraying a high dependency level.
The UNFPA says contraceptive use in Botswana is 32 percent and the fertility rate, 4.8 percent. Hope may be drawn, however, from the fact that there is 95 percent awareness among women of modern family-planning methods and all that remains to be done is to reduce the gap between knowledge and practice.
Manfred Wogugu, the UNFPA representative in Botswana, says there are also high maternal mortality levels, rapid urbanization, malnourishment, and increasing] y, street children.
Environmentally, Botswana’s ecosystem is threatened by overgrazing (there are more cattle than people), damaging agricultural practices without giving back to the environment what it needs.
Industry and urban settlements have claimed fertile agricultural land and with more than two-thirds of its land area desert, drought is a constant threat.
“Perhaps the most important environmental issues concern rangelands degradation since livestock numbers have grown substantial even though the growth has been interrupted by the drought.” Says Wogugu. Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi, the Mozambican Foreign Affairs Minister says the population growth in his country has overtaken economic growth and this is manifested in an increased number of poor people.
Mozambique faces an insurmountable task of creating jobs for the increased population and meeting the demand for resources. It has incorporated demographic issues in its national development policies by focusing efforts on maternal health care, family planning, education and the empowerment of women.
As a result of the conflict the infrastructure was destroyed — entailing complete reconstruction. The environment was ravaged by the many years of heated strife and will need rehabilitation.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) says poverty is one of the reasons poor families have high birth rates. Some underprivileged families have children to provide labour and security because of their lack of favourable opportunities and expectations.
In some cases the high child mortality rates due to lack of food, health care, safe water and sanitation force families to have many children in case some of them die.
Lack of resources makes any kind of planning difficult to implement, including family planning. Women in poor families are often illiterate and have little power over their fertility, and may lack knowledge about the environment on which their livelihood depends.
In countries with rapid population growth, the rate of urbanization is higher as people migrate to overpopulated cities in search of scarce facilities.
This can result in the development of unhygienic slums which encourage outbreaks of gut diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea. Poisonings caused by drinking untreated water which contains sewage and industrial waste are also common.
The Cairo population conference emphasized the critical role that population policies can play to curb poverty and environmental degradation. Improved health and education were cited as a means of empowering women to make decisions about their reproductive role.
Education levels of women also result in reduced fertility rates due to delayed marriages and greater use of family planning methods.
An issue associated with population wellbeing is abortion, and the right of women to choose. The issue generated such heated debate that it created strange bedfellows during the conference. The Vatican and Moslem fundamentalists were total1y opposed to abortion under any circumstances.
One anti-abortionist clergyman panned the ICPD saying, “This is not a population and development conference, this is a birth control, kill -the-babies, eradicate-the-humans conference.”
Most countries in southern Africa view abortion as a matter related to the health of mothers and babies, rather than as a method of birth control.
The UN says countries in southern Africa need to find “the right balance between fulfilling human rights, needs and aspirations, on the one hand, and fostering sustainable development and preserving environmental conditions and natural resources, on the other.”
The State of the Environment in Southern Africa — published by the Southern African Research and
Documentation Centre (SARDC), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and SADC’s Environment and Land Management Sector (SADC ELMS) — says when people lack adequate financial and other resources, they often have little choice but to take what they can from the natural environment to meet their needs, without consideration for the future.
The Executive Director ofUNFPA, Nafis Sadik, who was also secretary-general of the population conference, says there are no guarantees that slower population growth will determine the future of the environment.
“After all, the bulk of environmental damage is caused not by the poorer (and rapidly-growing) four-fifths of the world population, but by the richest (or slower-growing) fifth, most of whom live in the industrialized countries,” says Sadik. Shridath Ramphal, former president of the mCN, says consumption contributes much more to the breakdown of the earth’s life-support systems than population growth.
Speaking at the ICPD on behalf of the Global Governance and the Earth Council, Ramphal addressed consumption in relation to population and development. He cited the United States and former Soviet Union whose populations are relatively low but consume much more than developing countries.
His view was shared by Zimbabwe’s National Economic Planning Commissioner Richard Hove who told the conference that consumption and production patterns of the North needed to be marshalled to provide for the alleviation of poverty of the South and attain equitable distribution of world resources.
The ICPD is the first global conference to recognize the interrelation between population, the environment and sustainable development. Among other recommendations was the need for wider access to education for the girl child, health care, training and credit facilities for women to ensure gender equality and empower them to make their own choices and effectively carry out their responsibilities.
There is no doubt that the links between uncontrolled population growth generally impacts negatively on the environment, but control is not just a numbers issue. Population control should be an integral part of sustainable human development.
