More worrying news. Now from Worldwatch about rising death rates in
our divided world. Because of the HIV virus, life expectancy in
Zimbabwe will have fallen from 61 years in 1993 to 49 years in 2000,
and maybe 40 years in 2010 -- you will read in this press release
from the prestigious Worldwatch Institute in Washington. It is as bad
in Botswana, and one presumes the rest of southern Africa. I shall
never forget the orphan villages I walked through in Malawi, in 1997.
The after-impression is of having seen only the very young and the
very old.
God help us!
Boudewijn Wegerif.
Worldwatch Press Release
OUR DEMOGRAPHICALLY DIVIDED WORLD:
RISING MORTALITY JOINS FALLING FERTILITY TO SLOW POPULATION GROWTH
For the first time since China's great famine claimed 30 million
lives in 1959-61, rising death rates are slowing world population
growth. When the United Nations released its biennial population
update in late 1998, it reduced the projected world population for
2050 from 9.4 billion to 8.9 billion. Of the 500 million drop,
roughly two thirds is because of falling birth rates, but one
third is the result of rising death rates.
"Tragically, the world is dividing into two parts: one where
population growth is slowing as fertility falls, and one where
population growth is slowing as mortality rises," said Lester R.
Brown, co-author with Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil of Beyond
Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge.
"That rising death rates have already reduced the projected
population for 2050 by 150 million represents a failure of our
political institutions unmatched since the outbreak of World War II."
The world is now starting to reap the consequences of its past
neglect of the population issue, according to the new book released
by the Worldwatch Institute and funded by the David and Lucile
Packard Foundation.
The two regions where death rates are already rising, or are likely
to do so, are sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, which
together contain 1.9 billion people, or one third of humanity.
"Without clearly defined strategies by governments in countries with
rapid population growth to quickly lower birth rates and a
commitment by the international community to support them, one third
of humanity could slide into a demographic dark hole," said Brown.
This rise in mortality does not come as a surprise to those who track
world population trends and who know that a 3 percent annual growth
rate will lead to a twenty-fold population increase in a century.
Although population growth has slowed in most developing countries,
it has not slowed enough in many to avoid serious problems.
After nearly half a century of continuous population growth, the
demand in many countries for food, water, and forest products is
simply outrunning the capacity of local life support systems. In
addition, the ever growing number of young people who need health
care and education is exceeding the availability of these
services. If birthrates do not come down soon enough, natural systems
deteriorate and social services fall short, forcing death rates up.
But what would cause death rates to go up in individual countries?
Would it be starvation? An outbreak of disease? War? Or social
disintegration? At some point as population pressures build,
governments are simply overwhelmed and are not able to respond to new
threats. Beyond Malthus identifies three specific threats that either
are already pushing death rates up or that have the potential to do
so-the HIV epidemic, aquifer depletion, and shrinking cropland area
per person.
"Of these three threats, the HIV virus is the first to spiral out of
control in developing countries," said Brown. "The HIV epidemic
should be seen for what it is: an international emergency of epic
proportions, one that could claim more lives in the early part of the
next century than World War II did in this century." In sub-Saharan
Africa, HIV infection rates are soaring, already infecting one fifth
to one fourth of the adult population in Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Namibia, Zambia and Swaziland.
Barring a medical miracle, many African countries will lose one fifth
or more of their adult population to AIDS within the next decade. To
find a precedent for such a potentially devastating loss of life from
an infectious disease, we have to go back to the decimation of New
World Indian communities by the introduction of smallpox in the
sixteenth century or to the Bubonic plague that claimed roughly a
third of Europe's population during the fourteenth century.
Ominously, the virus has also established a foothold in the Indian
subcontinent. With 4 million of its adults now HIV positive, India is
home to more infected individuals than any other nation. And with the
infection rate among India's adults at roughly 1 percent-a critical
threshold for potentially rapid spread-the HIV epidemic threatens to
engulf the country if the government does not move quickly to check
it.
Using life expectancy, the sentinel indicator of development, we can
see that the HIV virus is reversing the gains of the last several
decades. For example, in Botswana, life expectancy has fallen from 62
years in 1990 to 44 years in 1998. In Zimbabwe, it has fallen from 61
years in 1993 to 49 years in 2000 and could drop to 40 years in 2010.
For infants born with the virus, life expectancy is less than two
years.
A second consequence of continuing population growth addressed in
Beyond Malthus is potentially life-threatening water shortages. If
rapid population growth continues indefinitely, the demand for water
eventually exceeds the sustainable yield of aquifers. The result is
excessive water withdrawals and falling water tables. Since 40
percent of the world's food comes from irrigated land, water
shortages can quickly translate into food shortages.
Dozens of developing countries face acute water shortages early in
the nextcentury, but none illustrate the threat better than India,
whose population, which is expanding by 18 million per year, will
reach 1 billion in a few months.
New estimates for India indicate that water withdrawals are now
double the rate of aquifer recharge. As a result, water tables are
falling by 1 to 3 meters per year over much of the country.
Overpumping today means water supply cutbacks tomorrow, a serious
matter where half of the grain harvest comes from irrigated
land.
The International Water Management Institute estimates that aquifer
depletion and the resulting cutbacks in irrigation water could drop
India's grain harvest by one fourth. "In a country where 53 percent
of all children are already malnourished and underweight, a shrinking
harvest could increase hunger-related deaths, adding to the 6 million
worldwide who die each year from hunger and malnutrition," said
Brown. In contrast to AIDS, which takes a heavy toll of young adults,
hunger claims mostly infants and children.
The third threat that hangs over the future of countries where rapid
population growth continues is shrinking cropland per person. Once
cropland per person shrinks to a certain point, people can no longer
feed themselves, becoming dependent on imported food. The risk is
that countries either will not be able to afford the imported food or
that food simply will not be available as world import needs exceed
exportable surpluses.
Among the larger countries where shrinking cropland per person
threatens future food security are Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Pakistan,
all countries with weak family planning programs. For example, as
Nigeria's population goes from 111 million today to a projected 244
million in 2050, its grainland per person will shrink from 0.15
hectares to 0.07 hectares. Pakistan's projected growth from 146
million today to 345 million by 2050 will shrink its grainland per
person from 0.08 hectares at present to 0.03 hectares, an area
scarcely the size of a tennis court. Countries where grainland per
person has shrunk to 0.03 hectares, such as Japan, South Korea, and
Taiwan, each import some 70 percent of their grain.
The threats from HIV, aquifer depletion, and shrinking cropland are
not new or unexpected. We have known for at least 15 years that the
HIV virus could decimate human populations if it was not controlled.
In each of the last 18 years, the number of new HIV infections has
risen. Of the 47 million infected thus far, 14 million have died. In
the absence of a low-cost cure, most of the remaining 33 million will
be dead by 2005.
"It is hard to believe, given the advanced medical knowledge of the
late twentieth century, that a controllable disease is decimating
human populations in so many countries," said Brown. "Similarly, it
is hard to imagine that falling water tables, which may prove an even
greater threat to future economic progress and political stability,
could be so widely ignored. The arithmetic of emerging water
shortages is not difficult." A growing population with a water
supply that is essentially fixed by nature means that the water
supply per person will diminish over time, eventually dropping below
the amount needed to satisfy basic needs, such as food production.
The same is true for cropland per person. "The mystery is not in the
arithmetic. That is straightforward. The mystery is in our failure to
respond to the threats associated with continuing population growth,"
said Brown.
The authors note that one of the keys to helping countries quickly
slow population growth is expanded international assistance for
reproductive health and family planning. At the U.N.'s Conference on
Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, it was estimated
that the annual cost of providing quality reproductive health
services to all those in need in developing countries would cost $17
billion in the year 2000. By 2015, this would climb to $22 billion.
Industrial countries agreed to provide one third of the funds with the
developing countries providing the remaining two thirds. While
developing countries have largely honored their commitments, the
industrial countries,importantly the United States, have reneged on
theirs. And almost unbelievably, in late 1998 the U.S. Congress
withdrew all funding for the U.N. Population Fund, the principal
source of international family planning assistance.
"The same family planning services-including reproductive health
counseling andthe distribution of condoms-that help to slow
population growth also help to check the spread of the HIV virus,"
said Brown. "But unfortunately, Congress, mired in the quicksand of
anti-abortion politics, is depriving developing countries of the
assistance that they need."
Beyond family planning, the forgiveness of international debts by
governments in the industrial world could enable poor countries to
make the heavy investments in education, especially of young females,
that accelerates the shift to smaller families. For example, in
Kenya, 25 percent of government revenue is spent on debt servicing,
while 7 percent is spent on education and 3 percent on health
care.
As U.N. delegates prepare in June to evaluate the progress made since
the Cairo conference, there is a desperate need for leadership in
stabilizing world population as soon as possible. But, the authors
note, despite the obvioussocial consequences of one third of the
world heading into a demographic nightmare, none of those to whom the
world looks for leadership - the Secretary General of the United
Nations, the president of the World Bank, or the president
of the United States-has even so much as devoted a single public
address to the fast-deteriorating situation.
-END-
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