The population challenge

In his first speech after his party’s victory in last year’s general elections, Prime Minister Imran Khan gave some rare but welcome attention to Pakistan’s overpopulation problem. The PTI manifesto had also mentioned how Pakistan has one of the lowest contraceptive prevalence rates in the world. An estimate by the Pakistan Medical Association that the country will soon have the fourth highest population in the world should bring further attention to this problem. According to the PMA, Pakistan has over 5.4 million births a year. Couple that with increasing life expectancy and we are looking at a population explosion that will strain the country’s resources to breaking point. As the pace of global climate change accelerates, Pakistan will face a water crisis even more acute than it is currently. Already it is believed that close to 90 percent of the population does not have access to clean drinking water. That number too may rise if the government does not take steps to check population growth. Food scarcity too will become more of an issue as arable land is reduced. In short: a disaster is coming our way if we do not take immediate action.Part of the reason we have not been able to check population growth is because of cultural factors. Even as the developed world faces a population problem that is the exact opposite of ours, where growth is below replacement rate, Pakistan’s annual population growth rate is 1.43 percent a year. In theory, there is no bar to the state providing reproductive health services since even the regressive Council of Islamic Ideology has allowed for some measures.In practice, however, access to prenatal health services and contraceptives are unequally distributed with the poor having little recourse should they wish to avoid pregnancy. Social pressures lead to larger families as children are considered a route out of poverty and potential earners who can be sent to work at a young age. Changing this will require state intervention through better access to health services, compulsory quality education and improved distribution of contraception. The alternative is an unsustainable population that will not be able to feed itself or have access to sufficient water. There is still time to change direction; and the state of Pakistan needs to realise that – before we are in the midst of a crisis to which there will be no solution.

from The News International - Editorial http://bit.ly/2Fm3GIW