The wrong kind of growth

The government plans a change in policy to push Pakistan’s population growth rate down to 1.6 per cent

With a population growth rate of 1.9 per cent, Pakistan is already the sixth-most populous country in the world. This is an alarming statistic given the country’s lack of resources and inability to feed the entire population. Experts anticipate an even bigger statistic with respect to population figures by 2050, as the rate of death declines and the number of youth in the country increases. To meet this challenge, the Minister of State for National Health Services, Saira Afzal Tarar, has said the government plans a change in policy as part of an endeavour to push Pakistan’s population growth rate down to a more respectable 1.6 per cent. This comes ahead of a summit on population growth planned by the ministry to discuss the current trends and what can be done to alter them. One of the points the minister made was that the slogan, “bache do hee ache” had not been effective in the past though it did help raise awareness about the advantages of smaller family sizes.

The task of controlling population growth is hard for Pakistan because population control drives are often seen as a part of Western propaganda by certain sections of the population, with clerics sometimes arguing that the real purpose is to prevent Muslims from proliferating in the world. The fact is that we need to control population growth for the sake of our country’s progress and long-term well-being, its dwindling resources and its people — especially women. Pakistan has one of the highest figures recorded in the world of women dying during childbirth every year. One of the reasons for this is repeated pregnancies, consequent anaemia and the trend of marrying off girls at a young age. The fact that after the passage of the 18^th Amendment the subject of population growth has devolved also makes the federal government’s task a little more complicated. It will need to find a way for the provinces to work together so that some kind of national strategy can be devised. We need a far-reaching policy to solve this most serious of problem.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2015.

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