Challenges before us as the world’s population reaches seven billion

By Tharanga Thilakasiri

It is projected that the word’s total population will reach the seven billion mark by the end of this year. The world’s population has increased quite rapidly and in 1979 the figure stood at 4.5 billion and by this year it has almost touched the seven billion mark.

On 11 July, World Population day, the United Nations Population Fund announced that “by late October our world will hit a global population of seven billion people, with some of our poorest countries doubling in population within the next decade”

Accordingly, this was the theme of the recently-concluded 27th Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) held in Colombo, where I actively participated and interacted with some of the dignitaries and the officials of visiting countries.

The theme of this important meeting was ‘The World Population at 7 Billion’. It was a great forum to discuss some vital and common issues related to the Asian region. Members of Parliament representing more than 20 countries were at the same table discussing various vital topics relating to each other. It was a significant achievement and improvement as they could build up the confidence of solving regional problems quite effectively.

However, the intention of this brief article is not to discuss the topic in detail but to highlight some of the key facts, such as challenges that the world has to face, which were discussed during the conference as I feel that they are crucial for us as well. Therefore, some of the identified and discussed facts pertaining to the topic are discussed subsequently.

Sri Lanka’s role

During the above conference, many countries highly commended several achievements of this island nation, especially Sri Lanka’s achievements on health and achievements on some of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and so on.

MP Yasuo Fukuda, former Prime Minister of Japan, during his address highly commended and appreciated the role played by Sri Lanka and its Parliamentarians in establishing the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) a few decades back.

He also went on to say that the Sri Lanka was one of the first countries in South Asia to address the population issue and simultaneously promote social development, such as improving the national literacy rate. He further noted that the Sri Lanka had become the most advanced in demographic transition in South Asia.

Accordingly, I think that the efforts of successive governments since independence of this country have helped us to reach such heights and in fact this is quite a remarkable achievement for a small country like ours.

For instance, life expectancy at birth of Sri Lankan males has risen to 70.1 years in 1991 from 32.7 years in 1920-1922 and for Sri Lankan females the figure stood at 74.8 years in 1991 when compared to 30.7 years in 1920-1922 (Source: Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka). Some of the key figures pertaining to Sri Lanka’s population are depicted in Table I and Table II.

The figures show an increasing tendency on a year-on-year basis in Sri Lanka’s population, yet the growth rate of the population has remained at more or less same over the last few years.

Challenges before the world

During the sessions, discussions and presentations, many dignitaries, scholars and representatives demonstrated a number of challenges that the world has to face presently and in the future with regard to the issues pertaining to population.

During his speech on ‘Achieving Sustainable Development and Economic Development in a World of 7 Billion People,’ Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama identified three key challenges that the world has to deal with soon:

•Food challenge

•Energy challenge

•Environment challenge

Similarly, the increases in the number of senior citizens and rising social security cost have been identified as some of other major challenges by the experts. This is quite visible factor in particularly in Japan, according to Fukuda.

Further, an increase in the world’s population will certainly create a number of other issues, because of the nature of the world’s resources which are limited in number and quantity and undesirably these resources are diminishing on daily basis.

For instance, crude oil resources in the world can be taken as an ideal example in this regard. Generally, it is believed that the all the world’s oil resources will diminish within a few decades’ time. Consequently, we will have no other option but to look for alternatives to oil resource sooner rather than later.

Quite similarly, it is learnt that the world’s cultivatable/arable lands are also lessening at a quite rapid rate due to various reasons such as high rate of urbanisation, etc., and some of them are basically due to the change in climate that taking place around the globe.

For instance, as per the records of Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka, the total land devoted for paddy is estimated to be about 708,000 hectares at present. Further, about 1,942,662 hectares are considered as extent under agriculture by sector and district (source: www.statistics.gov.lk).

Subsequently, due to the limitation of arable lands, farmers will not be able to cultivate crops and therefore, the harvest will not be enough to feed the increasing population in the future. Consequently, people around the globe will have to face food scarcity sooner rather than later if we do not find alternative ways to combat this issue without further delay. Further, at present many countries around the world are hesitating to export their harvest as they too are struggling to fulfil their own food requirements.

For instance, recently Sri Lanka had to experience such an unpleasant situation with regard to the importation of rice, onion and potatoes from countries which generally export such food items. This short-term shortage of the above food items could have occurred due to the adverse effects of climate changes that Sri Lanka had to experience recently and also due to the mismatch of supply and demand of those items in the local market. However, I would like to draw your attention on some of the key figures pertaining to Sri Lanka’s importation of rice, onion and potatoes as depicted in Table III.

Respective governments around the world should facilitate research on how to increase the yield per hectare and the best possible ways to get maximum quantity from a hectare by developing alternative methods while enhancing the quality of the yield of the various and essential crops. For instance, average yield per nett hectare (kg.) for paddy in the 2010/2011 Maha season stood at 3,796, while the figure for the 2009/2010 Maha season stood at 4,583.

Ageing population and its impact

As discussed earlier, there are number of challenges that the world has to face with the ever-increasing population issue. However, there are a few countries that are facing the other side of this issue, i.e. problem of decreasing population. This will have an adverse economic impact for these countries in the long run as the population, particularly the employable population or the workforce, has a direct relation to the economy of the concerned country.

As per the report published by the United Nation (UN), ‘Population Challenges and Development Goals 2005,’ it has identified several countries with deceasing population trends (refer Table IV).

Further, this report has noted that by 2050, the world is expected to have some two billion older persons – once again a tripling of the number in that age group within a span of 50 years. Nevertheless, it further identified that the older population is expected to continue growing more rapidly than other age groups during the next 25 years. Naturally such trends in the world’s population will make life tough for the decision makers of such countries further.

The importance of this is that the pace of population ageing is much faster in developing countries than in developed ones; developing countries will have less time to adjust to the consequences of population ageing. Moreover, population ageing in the developing countries is taking place at much lower levels of socioeconomic development than has been the case in the developed countries (source: Population Challenges and Development Goals 2005).

Consequently, the governments of such countries have to set aside substantial amounts of their national income to maintain the older population as a measure of social welfare. This will have a significant impact on the economy considering the decreasing workforce of such countries that are responsible for generating national income and therefore, they may have to import labour from the rest of the world. Thus, this will create a social imbalance among these countries in the long run.

Confronting challenges: International experience

How can we confront these challenges? This is the question that we all have to answer. In order to clarify this, I would like to quote significant extracts of Fukuda’s speech once again due to its importance:

“There is no bright future for a society that continues to increase its population, given the earth’s finite resources. And also, that there is no other peaceful way to stabilise the population other than succeeding in demographic transition.”

When it comes to addressing the population issues, many express the view that empowering women is crucial. However, the Member of Parliament from India presented a different thought or a point of view, which I found quite different and also of some significance.

During his speech, he pointed out that India’s youth, which accounts for over 50 per cent of its population, is an advantage for it compared to the rest of the world. Further, he emphasised that it is essential to ensure that young people are provided the avenues to involve themselves in the decision making process and nation-building activities. He believes that the youth need to be empowered and equipped with the equal opportunities to be part of the entire decision making process at all levels of governance.

In the same way, Song Fatang of China explained the importance of the food security. He said that the Chinese Government has been attaching great importance to food security and adhering to the policy of relying on domestic production to guarantee food supply.

Further, he noted that they combined the effort to address climate change with the implementation of sustainable development strategy, effort to accelerate the construction of resource-saving and environment-friendly society as well as effort to build an innovative country.

He also mentioned that the Chinese Government mobilised four trillion RMB investment to stimulate domestic demand, including 210 billion for energy saving and ecological projects and 370 billion for restructuring and technological innovation.

Conclusion

Considering the various measurements taken by some key countries such as India, Japan and China with regard to facing the population issues as discussed above, I believe that the other governments around the world too have a significant role to play with regard to balancing population and development together in order to confront present day and future challenges pertaining to population.

Therefore, I firmly believe that the speedy implementation of the outcomes arrived at during international forums are quite crucial for all of us at this critical juncture.



(Tharanga Thilakasiri, M.B.A (International), AIMM, MIM (SL), MIMA, MCPM can be reached via [email protected].)