Pakistan : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Rep Pakistan 6

[Arun_S]

[url="http://hunzatimes.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/pakistan-faces-population-time-bomb/"]Pakistan faces population time bomb[/url]

By Afzal

Pakistan’s population is growing so fast despite decades of family planning efforts that in 40 years it will be the fourth largest country on Earth, alarming experts who say the country’s broken infrastructure cannot sustain even its current population.



The United Nations Population Division projects that Pakistan will overtake Brazil and Indonesia by 2050 to rank fourth in world population, almost doubling to 335 million from its current 180 million.



“For a country with the resources of Pakistan that’s enormous. How can Pakistan support a population that size with jobs, education, health care? It can’t do so right now with the population it has,” said Daniel Baker, who heads the UN Family Planning Association in Pakistan.



Pakistan currently ranks sixth behind China, India, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil. On its creation in 1947 the subcontinent’s new Islamic republic had 37 million people and was ranked 15th in the world. In little than 60 years it has multiplied nearly five times, and now has a population growth rate of 2.2 per cent per year, surpassed in South Asia only by Afghanistan, according to UN population data.



The “continued high growth rate”, as Mr Baker calls the population explosion, defies decades of national family planning programmes.



The Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2006-2007, conducted by the ministry of population welfare and released this year, found that only 30 per cent of married Pakistani women use any contraception, a drop of two per cent over the previous four years. Only 22 per cent of those surveyed use a modern method of contraception



“The fact that the contraception prevalence rate has apparently stagnated, even gone down, is shocking and that has to be considered a problem,” Mr Baker said.



The Demographic and Health study found an “unmet need” of 25 per cent, referring to the percentage of couples who want to utilise family planning but are not doing so.



I can safely say family planning programmes have not been very successful,” said Yasmeen Qazi, a doctor who runs the Packard Foundation in Pakistan, a privately funded organisation dedicated to population issues and the environment



“The unmet need is so high because they don’t have access. The figures show that people really want to limit their family size, but they can’t.”



Mr Baker believes that while family planning efforts have succeeded in making almost every woman aware of family planning and at least one modern contraception method, “the big failure is the unmet need”.



Experts attribute the high rate of unmet need and low contraceptive use to mismanagement and confusion of roles between two federal ministries sharing family planning responsibilities: the ministry of health and ministry of population welfare.



The rapid population growth poses potentially disastrous consequences. “If the growth rate continues the way it is, it is totally unacceptable. We don’t have the resources. We are already overstretched,” Dr Qazi said.



The government is unable to provide enough schools to achieve a literacy rate any higher than 49.9 per cent overall, or 39.6 per cent for women. Hospital coverage in rural areas is weak, with one minimally staffed basic health unit serving 20,000 people in some areas. Manual labour demand, especially in the agricultural sector, which traditionally soaked up illiterate or unskilled youth, is shrinking, leaving even fewer income prospects for under-educated youth. Unemployment is at 7.4 per cent. Poverty is rampant with two-thirds living on less than US$2 a day.



“The implications are clear: if a population is outstripping a country’s ability to give education, jobs and health care already, then it’s not going to prosper when the population climbs even higher,” Mr Baker said. “There are those who say the rise of militancy is because so many young men who don’t have education or jobs turn to other means to vent their frustration. There are those who say the rise in militancy is a direct result of population growth rate.”



A youth bulge in the current population, also known as a “demographic dividend”, provides the potential to ramp up economic productivity and prosperity generation. Fifty-seven per cent of Pakistan’s population is between 15 and 64, and 41 per cent are under 15. Only four per cent are over 65.



“Pakistan is now experiencing its largest ever youth bulge. It could be a huge capital asset if it could be taken into account; or it could be taken the other way around if you don’t take it into account,” Dr Qazi said.



“When you don’t make positive capital investments in this youth bulge, then it’s taken away by the other side and you see violence and all that coming in. It’s a very scary picture.”



The current fertility rate of 4.1 children per woman means the next generation will double in size, according to the non-government Population Council of Pakistan.



“For the past six years, family planning has not worked here. It has worked in Bangladesh, in Indonesia, in other Islamic countries, but not in Pakistan,” said Arshad Mahmood, the council’s director of monitoring and evaluation.



With 4.2 million new births per year, the population increases by three million annually, making Pakistan the third biggest producer of people after India and China.



“Our current infrastructure is not enough to provide services to these new arrivals. Our youth account for almost 50 per cent of our population, and after five to 10 years most of them will be unemployed, illiterate youth. They have to do something for a living,” Dr Mahmood said.



Agricultural resources are running out, as farm land shrinks with each generation and farm jobs are eliminated by machines.

[url="http://www.businessinsider.com/10-countries-on-the-verge-of-a-demographic-crisis-2010-2#part-one-emerging-economies-with-out-of-control-population-growth-1"]10 Countries On The Verge Of A Crippling Demographic Crisis[/url]