High population growth rate and serious reproductive health concerns posing manifold challenges not only to meet food requirements but to cater other basic amenities for rapidly increasing population. Though fertility is declining, there is a huge unmet need for family planning and maternal mortality is more than 300 per 100,000 live births.
These views were expressed by medical experts while talking to Business Recorder here on Friday with reference to 'World Population Day' being observed in various parts of the world including Pakistan on Sunday, July 11 in a bid to create awareness among people about advantages of small family units.
The day seeks to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues, particularly in the context of overall development plans and programmes, and the need to find solutions for these issues.
It may be mentioned that the day was inaugurated in 1988 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to mark July 11, 1987, when the world's population hit five billion. In 2000, world population stood at 6.06 billion, and was growing by 78 million a year. The UN estimates that there would be between 7.3 billion and 10.7 billion people in 2050, with 8.9 billion the most likely projection.
With 21 people are born after every 5 seconds, the experts said that the average number of births per woman in developing countries had declined, from 6.3 to 3.1.
These numbers show that family planning programs are needed and utilised world-wide, and finally meeting the demand for family planning by individuals and couples. Despite these tremendous gains, approximately 1.2 billion teenagers world-wide are just entering into their reproductive years. And in developing countries, the number of women of childbearing age will be increased from almost 1.4 billion to almost 1.6 billion by 2020.
The number of people served by family planning programmes will have to increase by 40 percent simply to sustain current birth rates; bringing about a further decline in fertility will require an even greater expansion of programmes.
According to them, dramatic population growth puts enormous pressure on the environment, making it difficult to meet people's needs for clean water and air. It also makes it difficult for governments and communities to meet people's needs for shelter and education. While the solution is simple 'ensure access to family planning services' so that women and men can continue to choose to have smaller families.
Moreover, official sources said that the government had already launched various steps to create awareness among people about problems linked with population growth. Pakistan's population was increasing day by day, thus there was a need to enhance the crop productivity, because agriculture was the single largest sector in Pakistan, which provided one-fourth of GDP and absorbed about 44 percent of the labour force.
Meanwhile, various organisations have chalked out programmes to mark the day by holding seminars, walks and symposiums in different parts of the country.
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