Millennial headcount

Maps of the world are useful only if they show the way. There is suddenly an embarrassment of riches as far as demographic data is concerned, with every UN body and multilateral institution rushing in with global reports on the state of the world8217;s people and resources. On Wednesday it was the turn of the United Nations Population Fund to come out with its State of the World8217;s Population 1999 report. A great deal of the document covered familiar ground 8212; for instance, although the world turns 6 billion, officially speaking, on October 12, the figure has long been bandied in development circles. Yet, in so far as the report purports to be the last headcount of the global population in this millennium, it deserves a closer read.

Two broad trends have been confirmed in the latest population report, both of which have significant repercussions for the fate of humanity at large. The first, of course, is that even though the world is undergoing a significant demographic transition from high to low fertility andmortality, its population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate 8212; one billion was added to its numbers in just 12 years. This growth, predictably enough, is largely confined to regions in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of southern and western Asia. Most western nations and Japan 8212; United States being an exception thanks to high levels of emigration 8212; have registered low or negative growth rates. Not surprisingly then, 80 per cent of the world8217;s population today lives in developing countries. In 1960, that figure was 70 per cent. This trend should, rightly, leave its impress on global policy not just in monetary terms but in terms of human development and welfare. It proves conclusively that the world cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the quality of life in the poorer regions, since how people die in one half of the world has repercussions for how people live in the other half. Controlling numbers here cannot just be premised on technological solutions. While access to contraception is an importanthuman right, such a measure alone, in the absence of effective healthcare, could be self-defeating since most high growth areas are precisely those characterised by high infant and maternal mortality levels. Despite such evidence, however, international assistance for poorer nations have fallen from 61 billion in 1992 to just over 48 billion in 1997.

The second broad trend is that of rapid, and often unplanned, urbanisation. If the demographers have got their sums right, the biggest human challenge in the next century will lie in providing a halfway decent existence to the millions crowding the cities of every nation. According to the present report, by the year 2030, more than 60 per cent of the world8217;s population will live in urban areas. This will, in turn, put an unprecedented burden on natural resources. It does not need a prophet8217;s eye to divine that future battles for water will, in all likelihood, makes the skirmishes to control oil reserves in this century seem like child8217;s play. Destiny iscoterminous with demography. Indeed, a modern day Hamlet may even have exclaimed that the world8217;s fate lies not in its stars but in its numbers.