Adding numbers

A rapid population growth obviously places an acute strain on already scarce resources.

In the 1950s, Pakistan was the fourteenth most populous country in the world. By 2050, with an estimated population growth of up to three million people, it could stand at fifth place. It hardly takes the experts who spoke at a book launch on the country’s demographic situation in Karachi on July 1, to tell us this is very bad news indeed. A rapid population growth obviously places an acute strain on resources — which are already insufficient to meet the needs of people and looking realistically at things, there is no way we can support a population that size.

As the experts who spoke at the event stressed, urgent measures are needed now. They can simply not be ignored any longer; indeed, planning should have begun years ago. This did not happen and the results are before us. While in 1971, Pakistan and the then newly-created state of Bangladesh had approximately the same population size, today we have a population of 180 million compared with 150 million for Bangladesh. This should make us think. If a Muslim nation with a population growth rate noted to be one of the highest in the world can record such success in the family planning realm, we should be able to do the same.

It is true that some improvements have been made. The number of children per woman in the country averages 2.1, compared with a larger number a decade ago. But this is not enough. As economists and population experts emphasised, our priorities need to change. We need to recognise that controlling the number of people in the country is a prerequisite to any kind of development and progress. The factors which hold this back, including a lack of education for our women, a lack of family planning advice and the role of backward looking clerics, have not helped matters at all. If we are to save our country, we need to deal with all these factors one step at a time so we can move towards a brighter future.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2013.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.