A report of hearings held in the UK Parliament in 2006, focuses on the devastating impact of population growth on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The report was released on Jan 31. The Inquiry Chairman, Richard Ottaway, Member of Parliament (MP), concludes: – The evidence is overwhelming: the MDGs are difficult or impossible to achieve with the current levels of population growth in the least developed countries and regions.
Experts from around the world who testified to the hearings described the beneficial effects of slowing rapid population growth.
Slower population growth permits greater investment in education and health, helping to lift nations out of poverty (MDG 1). By contrast, high birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa have helped increase the number living in extreme poverty from 231 million in 1990 to 318 million in 2001.
In Ethiopia, 8 million people already live on permanent food aid, and the projected population growth from 75 million today to 145 million in 2050 presents an insurmountable (uoverstigelig) challenge.
Rapid population growth has a detrimental (skadelig) effect on the hope of achieving universal primary education by 2015 (MDG 2). Girls in large families are less likely to begin school and more likely to drop out early.
The UK Department for International Development (DfID) sees “The ability of women to control their own fertility as absolutely fundamental to women’s empowerment and equality” (MDG 3).
Kilde: The Push Journal
