This year marks the halfway point in efforts to achieve the MDGs, and progress has been promising in some areas such as primary education and vaccination rates. However, demographic trends are interfering with efforts to achieve other goals. For example, increasing population exacerbates extreme poverty even as work is being done to mitigate it. Organizations such as the Center for Global Development (CGD) have recognized this impediment. Last month, CGD launched an initiative that calls for more adequate consideration of demographics in the formation of development policy.
Broadly, demographers predict that in the first half of the 21st century the world’s population will be bigger, slower-growing, older and more urban than the population at the end of the 20th century (Cohen, 2005). This monthly update will explore how these demographic trends can both enhance and hinder progress in meeting development objectives. Specifically, we'll examine the impact of population growth and urbanization on poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability.
Population Growth and Poverty
The United Nations Population Division projects that over the next forty years the global population will increase from 6.7 billion to approximately 9 billion people. This rise in population is projected to occur almost entirely in low and middle income countries. By 2050, about 85% of people will live in the developing world; for each person in the developed world, there will be six living in developing regions.
The primary target of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the proportion of populations living in poverty and inhumane conditions, but, as populations grow, the absolute number of people who must be lifted from poverty to meet MDG targets also grows (See Figures 1 and 2). Though the achievement of the MDGs depends on many factors, targets will likely be easier to meet in places with lower population growth rates.
For example, a target of MDG 1 is to "halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day." The 2008 MDG progress report notes that progress towards this target has been most successful in Asia and least successful in sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia, strict fertility policies in some countries limit population growth, while population growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa, at about three percent per year, are among the highest in the world, and are both a cause and consequence of persistent poverty.
The relationship between population growth and poverty is not causal. Many factors, including economic growth, governance, and public health affect the poverty rate. However, rapidly increasing population size offers an additional challenge to meeting MDG targets in sub-Saharan Africa.
Population growth also affects the world’s ability to "Ensure Environmental Sustainability" as specified by MDG 7. The first specified target of this goal is to protect both the proportion of land area covered by forest and the area of land reserved to maintain biological diversity. However, population increases have historically coincided with increased pressures on land use.
For example, between 1950 and 1980, more land was converted to cropland than in the 150 years between 1700 and 1850 (MA, 2005). These three decades also hold the record for the highest population growth rates in history. Growing numbers of people lead to intensified rates of land cultivation because of increased demand for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel.
In addition, many of the poorest regions in the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, have high population growth rates and are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Reduced agricultural yields in these regions combined with a growing number of mouths to feed will impact the achievement of MDG targets related to hunger.
The challenges that demographic trends pose to development objectives may be mitigated if issues such as unmet needs for family planning gained more attention. The MDGs themselves actually incorporate these statistics into MDG 5 which aims to "Improve Maternal Health." The 2008 MDG progress report shows that in 2005 twenty four percent of married women in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest population growth rates in the world, stated a desire to delay or avoid having children, but were unable to access contraceptives.
Urbanization and the Millennium Development Goals
Throughout human history the majority of the world's population has lived in rural regions. However, around 2007, this majority shifted to cities. By 2030, the world’s urban population is predicted to increase from 3.2 billion people to 5 billion, while the rural population will decrease by about 28 million people. Ninety-seven percent of this rapid urbanization is expected to occur in developing countries (De Sherbinin and Martine, 2007).
This massive increase in urban populations is predicted to occur mostly in small and medium-sized cities rather than mega-cities (ibid). Population increases in smaller cities will lead to enormous pressure on limited infrastructure and will create potential public health problems as a result of so many people living in a limited area. It has been estimated that with the predicted rate of urban growth in developing nations, "poor countries will have to build the equivalent of a city of more than a million people each week for the next 45 years (Cohen, 2005)."
The increasing number of city inhabitants offers an opportunity for meeting the MDGs, as well as a challenge. The increased concentration of both people and wealth in one place that is characteristic of cities will facilitate aid disbursement and infrastructure development for more people in a short time frame. The immediate need for infrastructure and housing by massive numbers of people, however, will present a challenge.
This paradox of simultaneous opportunities and challenges can be seen in progress towards the MDG 7 sanitation target to "halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation." The most recent sanitation data from the World Bank demonstrate that the concentration of people in urban areas allows for a higher percentage of the population to have access to sanitation facilities as compared to rural areas (Figure 3).
However, infrastructure in small and mid-size cities is having trouble keeping up with a rapidly growing population. As a result, though the percentage of the urban population with access to sanitation facilities has risen in most regions between 1990 and 2004, the absolute number of people without access to sanitation facilities has, in fact, increased (Table 2).
MDG 7 is intended to ameliorate threats to the environment, including both large-scale threats to entire ecosystems and local environmental health issues like living conditions and access to clean water (De Sherbinin and Martine, 2007). The third and final target of MDG 7 focuses on the local environment and aims to improve the lives of slum dwellers.
The UN Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat) found that in 2001 about 1 billion people lived in slums. Slums have been broadly be defined as "a heavily populated area characterized by sub-standard housing and squalor." Some examples of sub-standard housing in slums include lack of clean water, sanitation, electricity and other basic services (UN Habitat).
In the least developed countries of the world, 78.2% of the urban population lives in slums. UN Habitat projects that the number of people living in slums will double by 2030 if no significant changes are made. Since slums have historically been created by massive influxes of populations to urban centers, any effort to improve the life of slum dwellers must consider predicted demographic shifts.
Demographics are intrinsically related to both the potential achievement of development objectives and the state of the environment that will be home to future generations.
While building the capacity to feed and house growing populations without compromising environmental awareness is a challenge that policy makers must face, not all demographic trends are necessarily problematic. Trends of slower population growth and urbanization, for instance, can be beneficial changes. In this light, demographics should be seen as an essential tool used to focus the priorities of both policy makers and development goals on the most pressing needs of human populations in the future.
Related Links:
Human Population Grows Up
The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2008
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005
CICRED Policy Paper Three: Urban Population, Development and Environment Dynamics
UN Habitat- The challenge of slums: global report on human settlements
EarthTrends:
Demographics and Population Data
Ask EarthTrends: How many people live on less than $1/day?
Ask EarthTrends: What is the definition of 'Sustainable Development'?
Ask EarthTrends: Which are the most populated countries in the world today? What are some future population projections?
July 2006 Monthly Update: World Population Growth--Past, Present, and Future
Urbanization Legends: Is urban growth part of the problem or part of the solution?
