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Who would have thought it? Population growth and famine would appear to be linked! [1]

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Date: 2024-04 

It’s World Population Day. Yet ironically, while thousands of people will be making generous donations to famine relief in the Horn of Africa, very few will give so much as a passing thought to population.

This is not an either/or job. Of course we have to respond to the current crisis. But if the population of the four countries most seriously affected by the current drought (Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya) continues to grow at the same pace, then this particular begging bowl will become a near-permanent feature of the international scene.

And one has to ask how much effort have all those aid organisations currently clutching at our heartstrings ever made to raise as much money to promote family planning in the region? Not much is the answer. Many of them still haven’t got the guts to confront today’s population crisis with any real honesty.

Start with the facts. The combined population of the four countries was 40 million in 1960. Now it is nearly 170 million. Ethiopia’s population has grown from 23 million in 1960 to 83 million today. Kenya from 8 million to 41 million. Even now, the total fertility rate for women in the four countries is around 5 children per woman.

It’s insane. It’s no good blaming climate change or food shortages or political corruption. Sorry to be neo-Malthusian about it, but continuing population growth in this region makes periodic famine unavoidable – as many people have been pointing out since the last famine. Many of the children saved by the money raised over the next few weeks will inevitably be back again in similar feeding centres with their own children in a few years time.

And I can’t help thinking that many of those dismissed as neo-Malthusians today have a great deal more humanitarian compassion than those who continue to turn a blind eye to the population story.

I know numbers can blunt the imagination, but dwell for a moment on these: to meet the needs of the 215 million women around the world who currently have no access to effective contraception would cost around $3.5 billion a year – a fraction of today’s aid flow. Success in achieving that objective would avoid 53 million unwanted pregnancies every year, 24 million induced abortions, and 1.6 million infant deaths.

I’ll be making my donation today to the emergency appeal, but with a sinking heart.



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[1] Url: https://web.archive.org/web/20110713120720/http://www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/who-would-have-thought-it-population-growth-and-famine-would-appear-be-linked

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