Sustainable development and population management
December 2, 2012, 7:56 pm
Welcome
Welcome to the one hundred and nineteenth (119th) edition of this regular column. Here, we discuss a wide range of topics around Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), many aspects of Business, SME Development, Agriculture, Education, Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Innovation and the Society at large.
Population
The world population reached the 7 billion mark a few months back. The world population hit 6.5 billion in 2006. This came about 12 years after the world population reached the 5 billion point in 1987.
The growth is extremely rapid.
This was not the case many thousands of years ago. Humans just like any other animal species were subject to the laws of nature. This meant that the survival of the species depended on the abundance of food and evasion of predators. It’s a cycle which regulated the population of every species. However, during the course of the history humans realised that their food can be produced; vegetables and fruits can be grown and animals can be farmed. From this point onwards the journey of the human kind took a different path from that of the other species. Abundance of food meant fewer restrictions on population growth.
Population growth increased significantly as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace from 1700 onwards. The drastic advances in medical technologies meant a significant drop in mortality and infant mortality rates. The advancement in industrial machinery resulted in substantial increases in agricultural productivity.
India
Take India for example. While India does lot of things right, population is one thing that doesn’t help them. The numbers are enormous and the systems and processes actually can’t handle it. While certain parts of the economy are thriving, the results donflow to everyone equally. While some are extremely rich, some die on the roads with no food. If you go down a street, little kids will be begging in their hundreds. Most of it is unheard of in Sri Lanka.
Whenever I am in India, I am amazed by the number of people around. It’s just full of people! I feel either there should be ways to control population, or systems and processes re-thought to tackle the numbers involved.
Author of "The Population Bomb", Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University recently gave an interview where he emphasized that global population has more than doubled since he wrote the book in 1968. He notes that although there has been a reduction in birth rates, it is not nearly enough.
It is projected that the Earth will have to support 2 billion additional people by 2050. He says:
"To support 2 billion more, it will be necessary to farm ever poorer lands, use more dangerous and expensive agricultural inputs, win metals from ever-poorer ores, drill wells deeper or tap increasingly remote or more contaminated sources to obtain water, and then spend more energy to transport that water ever greater distances. All this will require vastly more energy than is now used. As a result, the next 2 billion people probably will do disproportionately much more damage to our life-support systems than did the last 2 billion. Of course, if humanity got serious about protecting the environment, and now especially the atmosphere, the next 2 billion could do less damage."
In a nutshell, the increasing population need more land area for living to build houses and flats. On the other hand more land area is needed for agriculture to nurture the increasing population. And not forgetting the need to produce ever more increasing amounts of furniture and consumables among other things. All this is while sharing the limited amount of water, oil and other natural resources.
So, it’s crystal clear that we need to manage the population for our future generations to survive on mother earth. There are a few areas to that can help.
Empowering women to make their own decisions about child birth and bearing is one area. More than two in five pregnancies worldwide are unintended by the women who experience them. Women must be able to make their own decisions about childbearing free from fear of pressure from partners, family, and society.
The other main area is around consuming fewer resources and minimising waste. Humans use the finite resources of the world to unbelievable levels and they also waste large quantities of food every year. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, industrialized countries waste 222 million tons of food annually. If fewer resources and less food were wasted, the world would be able to feed more people and use fewer resources in producing them.
Not to forget, we are already talking of a potential famine where food could be in short supply. I am sure all of us have heard about the issues with drinking water.
Sustainable development and due attention to this is a need of the hour.
World Economic Forum on India
The World Economic Forum on India was held in Gurgaon, the National Capital Region from November 6 to 8. The meeting convened under the theme "From Deliberation to Transformation" created an ideal platform to dialogue and debate on core areas that are crucial for India to restore growth such as means of redressing the risks India faces, recognizing and developing its human capital and fulfilling India’s future promise. Deliberations which lasted for two days involved about 600 participants from 40 countries around the world.
Mr. Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, the Executive Director of Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute participated as a panelist in some sessions. Among the participants there were several imminent personalities such as Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, Imran Khan, the former Pakistani Cricket captain and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Commission.
The session on "Spurring the Growth of South Asia’s Social Economy" comprised of five panelists; Adi B. Godrej, Chairman of the Godrej Group, Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of the Arghyam Foundation in India, Kasim M. Kasuri, an educationist from Pakistan, Imran Khan, the former Pakistani Cricket Captain and the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Asanga Abeyagoonasekera. When other respondent were of the view that philanthropy, NGOs and voluntary service emerge to fill gaps in the services delivered by governments and markets, Mr. Abeyagoonasekera drawing an example from Sri Lanka pointed out how a sync of philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, government and private sector helped in overcoming the problems created by the Tsunami in 2004. He also added that empowering the bottom of the social pyramid, improving educational institutions, strengthening corporate social responsibility, improving governance processes and having the courage to engage all these components in eradicating poverty are important in achieving growth on a large scale.
The session "A Vision for India" in the course of its discussion recognized a number of points. It was brought into light that there are many challenges in capitalizing the potential of the youth bulge in the Indian society. One way to overcome this challenge and create a better future for the youth in India would be through increased investments in basic services like healthcare and education. Mr. Abeyagoonasekera stated that India needs to play a much better regional leadership role and the small nations in South Asia wants India to be a great success. It would be important for India to be attentive to the issues in other countries. In addition, Mr. Abeyagoonasekera underscored the importance in getting the basics correct by changing the mindset and by institutionalizing the changes in the mindset. He also emphasized the need to create actual integration in the South Asian region. One way to meet this end is loosening visa regimes. He suggested that India could be more flexible in giving Visa to people from Pakistan.
See you next week!
The Columnist
Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama is an entrepreneur, trainer, writer and speaker. In 2011 he was recognised as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in Sri Lanka. He co-founded Lanka BPO Academy (www.lankabpoacademy.lk). Yasas is an Executive Council Member of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL – www.cssl.lk). He is a regular resource person for ‘Ape Gama’ program of FM Derana and 100% Youth program on TV Derana.
