Population growth ‘outstrips AIDS as threat to poverty reduction’

By Daniel Nelson High population growth is a bigger threat to poverty reduction in most African countries than HIV and AIDS, according to demographer John Cleland. Neglect of the issue in discussions about international aid was “an utter scandal”, Cleland, professor of demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told a meeting at the School this week. He said that high population growth in a number of African countries would lead to continuing inability to feed national populations, destruction of ecosystems, and continuation of mass poverty, underemployment and dependence on international aid. Worldwide, population growth – currently running at 75 million people a year – would increase urbanisation and pressure for international migration, create severe water shortages in some regions and lead to loss of natural habitats and biodiversity and increased atmospheric pollution. Fertility had declined steeply in various parts of the world, a trend for which Cleland said state-sponsored family planning programmes could take some credit. He described such programmes as a unique form of social engineering, an example of the human species addressing a problem, deciding to act and finding an effective answer. Asked whether religions presented an obstacle to family planning, he said the biggest international impediment was the religious fundamentalism of the US government, which was doing little other than the “pernicious” propagation of sexual abstinence. “Moral views applied to public health are usually bad views, and family planning is no exception,” he commented. Cleland was pessimistic about the prospects of stemming climate change – “politicians talk but they haven’t done anything.” Affluence and lifestyle were the chief culprits. Use of fossil fuels had been the dominant way to get rich for 250 years, and there was little sign of a reduction in their use. He advocated a massive investment in nuclear power as the fastest way of reducing carbon emissions.