Uganda: Africa Should Be Cautious On Birth Control

 

An Ugandan Opinion about a Population Control Policy in Uganda

By Charles Okecha, 30 May 2013

Lately I read a publication that Uganda will be the first African country to benefit from a new multi-million dollar global campaign to increase demand for family planning services and information.

I wondered whether our country is at the moment suffering from overpopulation.

Rather, the rankling sore afflicting Ugandans is the vast quantities of natural resources lying idle and the high incidence of corruption that impedes service delivery and empowerment to generate wealth. A typical example is the high demand for cotton fabrics in the world market yet Ugandans are withdrawing from cotton growing.

It is the sale of raw cotton that makes the cotton industry less viable. Research, planning and processing of more products from the cotton crop can industrialise and prosper our country.

A large portion of the population is already infected, dying or living with HIV/AIDS. Given the prevalence of this plague and other curable diseases, we are not sure about the average life expectancy of each citizen and how many children are born HIV positive. India, China and other nations that adopted myopic birth control policies and cultural practices are now experiencing adverse consequences of their folly.

China's one child policy of 1978 has led to an imbalance of a large portion of ageing population. While for India, prejudice against the girl children is now blamed as the root cause of gang rape and polyandry (men many marrying and living with one woman).

There are many other undesirable implications of unrestrained birth control which we should be cautious about and regulate the tempo of such campaign lest the population joins the bandwagon to an oblivious destination. The upsurge in unwanted pregnancies implies that people indulge in unprotected sex which exposes them to the risk of HIV/AIDS.

This plague causes death and makes our nation unproductive and dependent on donors for drugs and other handouts. Why can't those developed countries concerned about the welfare of Ugandans and promising to dish out billions of dollars facilitate and empower them to exploit the idle resources, trade favourably and achieve economic independence?

Why can't those very funds be used to construct housing units; let us say sky scrappers and much more! That obscene campaign money will sidetrack us from pursuing our national Vision 2040 by propagating the perception of striving to survive on the available little jobs and exports.

My question is:- Who are those eligible to receive birth control apparatus? Married women or sex workers? Won't pills be peddled among school going youth and children?

Unrestrained practices of birth control has the propensity to multiply prostitution; negative attitude towards child bearing; abortion; and sears peoples' conscience not to respect the sanctity of life.

We should maintain family planning programmes currently in place with utmost caution and carry out more sensitization to dissuade people from creating families they cannot sustain. But we must take heed never to be hoodwinked like Judas Iscariot to be paid to massacre the African children.

The countries in question are imploding due to high population. They are not willing to establish industrial development projects in Africa at a time when the population is still high because this will deny their 'expatriates' jobs.

This should be an ulterior motive to reduce population in the continent so that when they launch their projects, job will readily be available for them. Take care don't say I never warned you!

http://www.newvision.co.ug

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My Answer:

Charles, first population control is a must in order to improve standard of living of African people. This is a scientific fact; we cannot do it without it. However, we have to learn from the mistakes of others while implementing population policies in our countries. The imbalance between man and women in India is created by selected abortion and therefore abortion should be banned in African population policies. The imbalance of a large portion of aging population in China is not really a big problem as the western media is talking and exaggerating it, you can see that most Chinese today are very content with the One Child Policy and recognize it as the main cause of the improvement in the standard of living in their country. I don’t think African countries will be as drastic as China; most probably a 2.1 to 2.4 or so child policy is very good at a start. Stabilizing population is first aim.

“Why can't those very funds be used to construct housing units; let us say sky scrappers and much more”

Charles, how much housing units are you going to build with these money? Sky scrapers? People are not finding what to eat and you talk about building sky scrapers. That is the wrong way of dealing with it. The right way is, a population control policy that is going to bring gradually a better saving for both families and the government with which will be invested in improving the standard of living of the population. This cannot happen otherwise believe me.

“We should maintain family planning programmes currently in place with utmost caution and carry out more sensitization to dissuade people from creating families they cannot sustain.”

Look what Charles, you want to maintain the current family planning program? This program which have led to the destruction of the economy of your countries and consequently the destruction of the human lives in Uganda and almost everywhere else in Africa. Family planning is a failure and only brought us miseries here in Africa and I am speaking to from the most exemplary country which has adopted family planning in Africa: Tunisia. The people won’t be persuaded if you tell them: don’t bring a many children. It is the government which has to decide how much children each family has to have and implement that by law and while doing so, the governments have to launch kind of awareness campaigns about the motives and the benefits of the Population Policy.

I invite you to read my e-book here: Africa Overpopulation Trap When God Balance is Broken

Kenya Scoops Global Award For Population Control

May 15, 2013

Kenya has been recognized globally for its efforts to reduce it’s population through family planning.

The award will be presented to the Kenyan representative by Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health in Geneva, Switzerland next Wednesday at the World Health Assembly.

Kenya was praised for its superb population policy to curb the country’s rapidly growing population which was crafted by the Kenya National Council for Population Development, and smoothly navigated through parliament for approval last year.

The policy proposes women to have an average of 2.6 children throughout their reproductive period instead of the current 4.6.

While announcing the winners, Aspen Global Health and Development Executive Director Peggy Clark noted that Kenya has demonstrated to the world that everything was possible with the right policy and governance even in the most challenging environment.

Also recognized in Africa were Gambia, Zambia and Sierra Leone.

Why The Rumors Of Africa's Explosive Growth Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

BY RICK ROWDEN | JANUARY 4, 2013

Recent high growth rates and increased foreign investment in Africa have given rise to the popular idea that the continent may well be on track to become the next global economic powerhouse. This "Africa Rising" narrative has been most prominently presented in recent cover stories by Time Magazine and The Economist. Yet both publications are wrong in their analysis of Africa's developmental prospects -- and the reasons they're wrong speak volumes about the problematic way national economic development has come to be understood in the age of globalization.

Both articles use unhelpful indicators to gauge Africa's development. They looked to Africa's recent high GDP growth rates, rising per capita incomes, and the explosive growth of mobile phones and mobile phone banking as evidence that Africa is "developing." Time referred to the growth in sectors such as tourism, retail, and banking, and also cited countries with new discoveries of oil and gas reserves. The Economist pointed to the growth in the number of African billionaires and the increase in Africa's trade with the rest of the world.

But these indicators only give a partial picture of how well development is going -- at least as the term has been understood over the last few centuries. From late 15th century England all the way up to the East Asian Tigers of recent renown, development has generally been taken as a synonym for "industrialization." Rich countries figured out long ago, if economies are not moving out of dead-end activities that only provide diminishing returns over time (primary agriculture and extractive activities such as mining, logging, and fisheries), and into activities that provide increasing returns over time (manufacturing and services), then you can't really say they are developing.

What's striking about the two articles cited above is that they don't mention manufacturing, or its disturbing absence, in Africa. And that, in turn, confirms once again the extent to which the idea of development as industrialization has been completely abandoned in the last few decades. Free market economics has come to advise poor countries to stick with their current primary agriculture and extractives industries and "integrate" into the global economy as they are. Today, for many champions of free markets, the mere presence of GDP growth and an increase in trade volumes are euphemisms for successful economic development. But increased growth and trade are not development.

For example, even if an African country like Malawi achieves higher GDP growth rates and increased trade volumes, this doesn't mean that manufacturing and services as a percent of GDP have increased over time. Malawi may have earned higher export earnings for tea, tobacco, and coffee on world markets and increased exports, but it is still largely a primary agricultural economy with little movement towards the increased manufacturing or labor-intensive job creation that are needed for Africa to "rise."

The failure to mention industrialization thus renders most comparisons of growth in Africa and East Asia spurious. For example, the Time article, which suggests that, "during the next few decades hundreds of millions of Africans will likely be lifted out of poverty, just as hundreds of millions of Asians were in the past few decades," cites the divide that has opened up between rich and poor in China and India as a warning that inequality could also become a problem as Africa's progress continues. The Economist article cited a World Bank report that claims that "Africa could be on the brink of an economic take-off, much like China was 30 years ago," noting that, in both cases, a mass population of young workers stood at the ready to boost growth. It also touched on the importance of education: "Without better education, Africa cannot hope to emulate the Asian miracle."

There are, of course, several indicators that offer a more precise picture of how well Africa is developing (or not). We can look at whether manufacturing has been increasing as a percentage of GDP, or whether the manufacturing value added (MVA) of exports has been rising. In these cases the comparison between Africa and East Asia is actually quite revealing -- as demonstrated by a recent U.N. report that paints a far less flattering picture of Africa's development prospects.

It finds that, despite some improvements in a few countries, the bulk of African countries are either stagnating or moving backwards when it comes to industrialization. The share of MVA in Africa's GDP fell from 12.8 percent in 2000 to 10.5 percent in 2008, while in developing Asia it rose from 22 percent to 35 percent over the same period. There has also been a decline in the importance of manufacturing in Africa's exports, with the share of manufactures in Africa's total exports having fallen from 43 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2008. In terms of manufacturing growth, while most have stagnated, 23 African countries had negative MVA per capita growth during the period 1990 - 2010, and only five countries achieved an MVA per capita growth above 4 percent.

The report also finds that Africa remains marginal in global manufacturing trade. Its share of global MVA has actually fallen from an already paltry 1.2 percent in 2000 to 1.1 percent in 2008, while developing Asia's share rose from 13 percent to 25 percent over the same period. In terms of exports, Africa's share of global manufacturing exports rose from 1 percent in 2000 to only 1.3 percent in 2008. Africa is also losing ground in labor-intensive manufacturing: Its share of low-technology manufacturing activities in MVA fell from 23 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2008, and the share of low-technology manufacturing exports in Africa's total manufacturing exports dropped from 25 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2008. Finally, Africa remains heavily dependent on natural resources-based manufacturing, which is an indication of both its low level of economic diversification and low level of technological sophistication in production. The share of resource-based manufactures in Africa's total manufacturing exports declined only slightly in recent years, from 52 percent in 2000 to 49 percent by 2008. In East Asia and the Pacific, the number dropped to as low as 13 percent by 2008.

Such statistics and comparisons with East Asia are, of course, completely at odds with the "Africa rising" narrative.

A recent report by the African Development Bank, makes a similar point. "Africa's growth tends to be concentrated on a limited range of commodities and the extractive industries," the report states. "These sectors are not generating the employment opportunities that would allow the majority of the population to share in the benefits. This is in marked contrast to the Asian experience, where the growth of labor-intensive manufacturing has helped lift millions of people out of poverty..." The report goes on to note that "[p]romoting inclusive growth means... broadening the economic base beyond the extractive industries and a handful of primary commodities."

This point was also not lost on recent Ghanaian presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, who warned: "About 30 years ago, some African nations, beginning with Ghana and Uganda, implemented liberal economic reforms to stop their economic decline. But in many cases we opened our markets to global competition when, beyond the extractive industries, we had nothing to compete with. So while the continent's share of global foreign direct investment projects has improved steadily over the past decade, much of this investment has reinforced the structural deficits of our economies."

Today many African countries need to use industrial policies, such as temporary trade protection, subsidized credit, and publically supported R&D with technology and innovation policies, if they are ever to get their manufacturing sectors off the ground. This is true for all the same reasons that it was true for the U.K. and other nations that have industrialized successfully. According to today's ideology of free trade and free markets, however, many of these key policies are condemned as "bad government intervention." Bilateral and multilateral aid donors advise against them (and structure loan conditions accordingly). WTO agreements and new regional free trade agreements (FTAs), as well as bilateral investment treaties (BITs) between rich and poor countries, frequently outlaw them.

Critics of industrial policies are correct to cite some historical cases where industrial policies have misfired in developing countries. But these critics are often selective in their criticisms, ignoring successful cases and neglecting to explain why industrial policies worked so well in the United States, Europe and East Asia while failing so badly in Africa and elsewhere.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, particularly in Africa and Latin America, many industrial policies failed because they were used inappropriately, with poor sequencing, and were often driven by political considerations or corruption rather than economic analyses or strict efficiency grounds. In Latin America, often the industrial policies were kept in place too long, and were too inwardly focused on small domestic markets, neglecting the need to develop international competitiveness. In contrast, the political economies of East Asian countries included institutions that tended to enforce stricter rules for which industries got subsidies and trade protection, and which got cut off from them when they failed to meet performance targets. They also adopted a more outward orientation in their industrialisation strategies. Crucially, this history says more about how industrial policies should be implemented -- not if they should be implemented at all.

But some nations are increasingly rebelling against such constraints. Coalitions of developing countries within the WTO, such as the G33  and NAMA 11 , are asking for more time to implement trade liberalization and for broader exemptions to increase tariffs when their domestic agriculture or manufacturing industries are threatened by floods of cheaper imports. This problem of the lack of necessary "policy space" was noted in a recent report by the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The Panel expresses concerns about the European Union's proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which seek to make access for African goods into European Union markets conditional on Africa eliminating or lowering tariffs on 80 percent of imports from the European Union. The report suggests that this would be highly damaging to domestic industries.

Though African countries desperately need the policy space to adopt industrial policies, the rich countries are pushing loan conditions and trade and investment agreements that block them from doing so, all the while proffering a happy narrative about "the rise of Africa." The very idea of industrialization has been dropped from the official development agenda. Yet there's a reason why we all regularly refer to the rich, industrialized countries in the OECD as "industrialized."

Despite the important gains in services industries and per capita incomes, Africa is still not rising, and services alone will not create enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed youth in Africa's growing urban areas. Instead, steps must be taken to revise WTO agreements and the many trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties currently being negotiated so that Africa has the freedom to adopt the industrial policies it needs in order to make genuine progress.

Kenya: Legal Hurdles in Population Control

By John Chigiti, 7 November 2012
 
The population of Kenya has been on a steady increase. This has raised concern that if the growth continues unchecked, there will be a population explosion.
The advantages of controlling the population growth cannot be said to outweigh its disadvantages. The population increase is adversely affecting the ever dwindling natural resources, and if it continues to grow any further, the existing resources will not be able to sustain the high population numbers.

This has led to the increased poverty levels, as parents cannot cope with the cost of bringing up children in healthy environments, hence the vicious cycle of poverty.
It is for these reasons that the government is seeking to put up mechanisms to control the population growth. On the other hand, if population increase is not properly and professionally controlled, Kenya is likely to end up like some developed countries, which despite the abundant resources don't have enough labour and workforce to exploit these resources.

These countries have ended up importing expensive labour from outside their countries. An effective population control policy needs to balance the population growth and control.

The millennium development goals provide for, among other things, sustainable population growth and sustainable economic growth. For these goals to be achieved there has to be a balance between population growth and economic growth.
The quest by the government to control the population of its people is in itself justified. In order to ensure that it provides for its people good and reasonable standards of living, which is a duty it owes to the people, it must strike a balance between population growth and the existing economic and natural resources. A very high population will be catastrophic to the economy and quality of life.

Despite the fact that there is need for control of population growth, this has to be done carefully so as not to violate social, family and human rights of individuals.
Each and every person has a right to live their lives freely, and to make personal decisions on the direction their lives should take. The government should therefore employ measures that are acceptable and that will not affect the lives of people.
This should be so because there is no legal framework that governs or controls any measures that the government intends to take in controlling the population of the country. This exposes the rights of the citizens as the government may embark on unorthodox ways of achieving its objectives.

All population control policies or mechanisms should work in such a way that the family rights are not offended. No one should feel micro-managed by population control policies or any legislation that a nation enacts.

In enacting laws that are aimed at controlling the population,the lawmakers have to consult the family.The social and economic rights as guaranteed unde Article 43 of our constitution will be achieved only if the lawmakers understand the family unit first.

There has to be a balance between the number of people in the family and the available resources. The state will only be able to fulfill its obligations of feeding its people if the resources are utilized properly and not exposed to abuse. Abuse can come indirectly if the population growth overstretches and or overwhelms the scarce resources.

Has the time come for the government to dictate the number of children one is entitled to through an Act of Parliament? Some countries have been able to come up with laws to control its population.

A good example is china which has effectively set up and implemented a one child policy rule. This has helped control the soaring population growth.

The importance of having a sustainable population growth cannot be overemphasized. It is the wish of each and every individual to lead a good quality life.

Policies for controlling population are therefore welcome, as long as they don't violate rights of individuals to have the number of children they want.
Governments should embrace persuasive ways of controlling the population, in that it is upto the person to decide and weigh if s/he thinks having fewer children is beneficial or not. Getting children should not be criminalised; it should be voluntary.

The Time for Population Control Is Now

First posted on, June 23rd 2012 on standardmedia.co.ke

Far too many couples that can barely afford to get by are having larger and larger families and putting their children in needless danger.

Evidence of this is available in abundance but for cultural, political, religious and other reasons, nothing is being done to discourage the trend. We believe the rash of child killings and attempted killings that have been highlighted in the media in recent months should be cause for reflection on the state of the family.

All children are constitutionally guaranteed the right to a life of health and equal opportunity. But, in the absence of significant support from parents, providing them with these rights through social welfare spending shall be a challenge for even the most socialist government.

The nation’s population is growing faster than service delivery can be improved. The demands on national revenue are huge and there is a limit to the burden the State can bear.  We commend forward-looking interventions like the public school feeding scheme and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children programme, which attempt to address social challenges.

However, there is clear evidence they are far from adequate even for the specific groups at which they are targeted. The solution isn’t merely expanding them to cover the large number of children at risk, such as those in large impoverished families.

There is already a shortfall in meeting the needs of orphans and the elderly. Rather, we should aim to reduce the number of children at risk. This begins with encouraging Kenyans to have smaller families through education and provision of the healthcare services young mothers require.

We are aware that population control is a politically sensitive issue that few are brave enough to bring up. Political leaders looking to boost ethnic numbers on voter rolls are often quick to call for more births even in areas where grinding poverty is the norm.

Religious leaders, on the other hand, stick to dogmatic positions based on the methods by which control is achieved. This leads to an impasse in which reductions that would be good for the nation remain elusive.

Evidence from countries like Brazil, China and India, which have aimed at low levels of population growth, shows a beneficial correlation between smaller families and prosperity.

Why not seek similar success rather than live with alarming levels of malnutrition, childhood disease and infant and maternal deaths?
Some analysts have argued that rather than bring down fertility rates, Kenya should focus on reducing child deaths. Surviving children, they say, are the best form of birth control. This, however, has not been borne out by experience. Indeed, large families often get larger even in circumstances where this seems foolhardy. In 2008, for instance, a menial labourer in Kyuso District became a father of nine after his wife bore triplets. 

The 41-year-old man was forced to seek the help of his ageing parents to care for the children. Yet to most Kenyans, the births of Samuel Kalonzo, Seth Raila and Saulo Kibaki was cause for celebration not a cautionary tale about unplanned families. Another family of nine that comes to mind was that of Jamin Mukobero, driven to mass murder by life’s frustrations.

Far too many of the 1.5 million or so children born every year enter families already too large for parents to handle. When disease, separation, misadventure or other misfortunes rob such families of one of the breadwinners, they go from living in crisis to full-blown breakdown.
As reported elsewhere in this paper, some of the parents left struggling with large families of their own or children from other relations succumb to their frustrations with alarming regularity. Interventions to deal with this issue need to be devised urgently, both in the short term and long term.

Our recent census results are a wake-up call to the nation on population stresses and competition for natural resources. Kenya is not a rich country.

The discovery of oil, which can have a significant transformative effect on the economy, may tempt the Government to carry the weight of the larger families. This, however, would be ruinous in the long term by encouraging a population boom that will bring down living standards in the long run.
A hard look at other available resources shows that expecting to support a large population is a dangerous proposition.

Kenyans are already among the most taxed in the world, forking out heavily for both income and expenditure taxes, as well as other fees and levies. It is unlikely the few in the tax net will willingly continue to bear the burden of large welfare families.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke

New Africa Blueprint (Population Control)

 

TRANSITIONING SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA TO DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPERITY (NEW AFRICABLUEPRINT)

By: Samuel .B. Yonga

Introduction

That Africa has lagged behind in social and economic development is no debate the debate is on real development in Africa, Is the continent truly developing or are we being fooled by numerical data? African nations perpetually occupy the bottom of the UN Human Development Index and the root cause is associated with geographical factors like climate and historical factors like the slave trade which robbed her of the most productive population, Philip Curtin estimated that by 1850 the population of Africa should have reached 100 million. But this is not the subject matter for now. Before revealing the solution we must first dispel the myth that the growth witnessed is of real value. As an African native I can say with surety that in most sub-Saharan countries the growth rates are not a true reflection of the economic reality on the ground .The quality of life began to decline when development could not match population growth. We are not allowed to process most of the raw materials we produce to finished products as this would upset the world economic status quo but there are other channels to use to develop. The current mode of economic growth centered around primary production and limited secondary production will not reveal real prosperity as the rate at which population is growing erodes economic gains such that by the time population steadies the number of people will have far outstripped resources available as the economic situation is far more competitive and less conducive than that of developed countries when they were developing. In short sub-Saharan Africa cannot achieve prosperity with the current policies. This brings us to first solution.

1. POPULATION CONTROL

African countries can transform impressive growth rates into real economic gains by controlling their population thus development is in tandem with population.

The very idea of population control is frowned upon by most but its morality is rarely explored. Having a child is one’s freedom but we know freedom implies responsibility and when one’s freedom injures another there is usually consequence as when you misuse your freedom of movement to intrude into other people property you are charged with having committed crime. If you know you do not have the economic capability to take care of a child and still have one you have most likely condemned that child to a life of poverty and suffering, is that no a crime? You’re freedom has harmed your child and thus there should be consequences as with the intruder, why are there none? One’s freedom of movement is limited and it follows one's freedom to have a child should be limited. What is the use of giving birth to a child that is going to live a life of poverty and struggle ,just because you want a child, is that not extremely selfish? This is the most heinous of crimes as it is condemning someone prior to birth for your own selfish needs.There are four primary principles that should be part of the new population control legislation. Those allowed to have a child should:a)

Only those capable of providing a child with all basic needs of high standards including a stable conducive social foundation, essential secondary needs and good education till secondary level.b)

Anyone who has a child without first getting a license shall be forcibly sterilized both man and woman responsible and part of their combined revenues used to sponsor the child’s needs.c)

People should apply to have children from a certified state organization that determines economic and social capability of a couple having a child before the child is conceived.d)

Anyone without a license to have a child that has one shall face fine sand part of their revenue coming under state control for the child's benefit.Now the question is what the economic and social benefits are. The benefits are far reaching and numerous but I will only state the main ones.First the quality of life will increase as the poor elements in society do not reproduce and hence the cycle of poverty is stopped as only those of sound economic and social health reproduce. In essence poverty is flushed out of society. Second Children are able to attain all essential needs of a high-quality. Third The average citizen is of a far higher quality as he/she has been brought up in a much better environment, this reduces crime rates.Another plausible query is how the general population may take it .Of course if it is implemented all at once there will be uproar and general discontent throughout the population that is why it is suggested that each

principle in implemented in pieces over a period of say 5 to 10 years such that the public find themselves in the situation without knowing how they got there in this way there will be less resistance and any defiance can be managed. The general public is ill informed and may not realize that in the end it is not only the moral thing to do but also best for them.

2. CURBING UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE

We know that many Western countries introduced universal suffrage in the twentieth century despite having democracy for centuries before that.Only when the general population was mature enough was the vote given to everyone yet here in Africa the vote is given to even those who know none of the running candidates. The ultimate result is that the ignorant, easily manipulated and less educated majority has the sway and thus you have countries run and controlled by the least equipped to do so .As I earlier said freedom is not without limits when it infringes on others rights as ones righto vote has a direct effect on others as it determines leaders. Hence voting qualifications should be as follows and apply to candidates as well:a)

One should have education till university or college)

One should have a steady income above a certain level)

One should be of sound mind)

One should never have engaged electoral malpractices The population will again never take this lying down it is thus necessary to modify the electoral procedures such that the general public elect people who meet the above qualifications these people now vote for the actual leaders.

Conclusion

The two solutions are from my observation of the situation in Africa and there are in my opinion necessary if Africa is to save herself from poverty and poor leadership that has bedeviled her.

Challenges loom as world population hits 7 billion

• DAVID CRARY - AP National Writer (AP)
• Posted October 16, 2011 at 12:01 a.m.

She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees.

"I regret to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe. "If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."

At Ahmed Kasadha's prosperous farm in eastern Uganda, it's a different story.

"My father had 25 children — I have only 14 so far, and expect to produce more in the future," says Kasadha, who has two wives. He considers a large family a sign of success and a guarantee of support in his old age.

By the time Ndageramiwe's ninth child arrives, and any further members of the Kasadha clan, the world's population will have passed a momentous milestone. As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.

In Western Europe, Japan and Russia, it will be an ironic milestone amid worries about low birthrates and aging populations. In China and India, the two most populous nations, it's an occasion to reassess policies that have already slowed once-rapid growth.

But in Burundi, Uganda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic news is mostly sobering as the region staggers under the double burden of the world's highest birthrates and deepest poverty. The regional population of nearly 900 million could reach 2 billion in 40 years at current rates, accounting for about half of the projected global population growth over that span.

"Most of that growth will be in Africa's cities, and in those cities it will almost all be in slums where living conditions are horrible," said John Bongaarts of the Population Council, a New York-based research organization.

Is catastrophe inevitable? Not necessarily. But experts say most of Africa — and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan — will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives.

"Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other," says Lester Brown, the environmental analyst who heads the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families."

Overpopulation and poverty are directly related and each one strengthen the other.

Without such intervention, Brown says, food and water shortages could fuel political destabilization in developing regions.

"There's quite a bit of land that could produce food if we had the water to go with it," he said. "It's water that's becoming the real constraint."

Lagos, Nigeria, is expected to overtake Cairo soon as Africa's largest city. Private water vendors there do a brisk business in the many neighborhoods that otherwise lack access to potable water.

The drone of generators is omnipresent, at offices and markets, in neighborhoods rich and poor, because the power grid doesn't produce enough power. Periodic blackouts extend for hours, days, sometimes weeks.

Such is daily life in Nigeria's commercial capital, where the population is estimated at 15 million and growing at 6 percent or more each year. Problems with traffic congestion, sanitation and water supplies are staggering; a recent article in UN-Habitat said two-thirds of the residents live in poverty.

The rest of Nigeria isn't growing as fast — estimates of its growth rate range from 2 percent to 3.2 percent. But it's already Africa's most populous country with more than 160 million people.

Ndyanabangi Bannet, the U.N. Population Fund's deputy representative in Nigeria, notes that 60 percent of the population is under 30 and needs to be accommodated with education, training and health care.

"It is a plus if it is taken advantage of," he said of Nigeria's youth. "But if it is not harnessed, it can be a challenge, because imagine what hordes of unemployed young people can do."

In Uganda, another fast-growing country, President Yoweri Museveni used to be disdainful of population control and urged Ugandans, especially in rural areas, to continue having large families.

Recently, the government has conceded that its 3.2 population growth rate must be curbed because the economy can't keep pace. Earlier this year, anti-government protests by unemployed youths and other aggrieved Ugandans flared in several communities, and nine marchers were killed in confrontations with police.

"The government has been convinced that unless it invests in reproductive health, Uganda is destined to a crisis," says Hannington Burunde of the Uganda Population Secretariat.

Among those who are struggling is John Baliruno, 45, of Mpigi in central Uganda, a father of nine.

"I never intended to have such a big number," he said. "I with my wife had no knowledge of family planning and ended up producing one child after another. Now I cannot properly feed them."

Looking ahead, he's pessimistic.

"The environment is being destroyed by the growing population. Trees are being cut down in big numbers and even now we can't get enough firewood to cook food," he said. "In the near future, we will starve."

Another of the fastest-growing countries is Burundi. With roughly 8.6 million people, it's the second most densely populated African country after neighboring Rwanda.

Omer Ndayishimiye, head of Burundi's Population Department, said continued high growth coincides with dwindling natural resources. Land suitable for farming will decline, and poverty will be rampant, he said, noting that 90 percent of the population live in rural areas and rely on farming to survive.

The government has been trying to raise awareness about the demographic challenges among the clergy, civic leaders and the general public.

"We are suggesting couples to go to health clinics to get taught different birth control methods," Ndayishimiye said. "But we are facing some barriers ... Many Burundians still see children as source of wealth."

At her modest house in Gishubi, Godelive Ndageramiwe ponders the changes that have made her regret her large family.

"Children were a good labor force in the past when there was enough space to cultivate," she said. "Today I can't even feed my family properly. My kids just spend days doing nothing."

After her fourth child, she began to worry how her family could be cared for.

"But my husband was against birth control and wanted as many children as possible," she said. "It was delicate because he could marry another wife.

"My friends advised me to go to a nearby clinic, but I was told I must come with my husband. Now I have laid the issue in the hands of God."

Ethiopia Towards Population Control Policy

You don't need to go to a place like Ethiopia to get a firsthand look at population growth -- we can see its impacts all around us, from sprawling suburban subdivisions to crowded highways and mega-malls. But poor, developing countries like Ethiopia have their own kinds of population challenges, a big one being that many women still lack any access to family-planning tools and information. I recently had the opportunity to see some of these challenges with my own eyes -- and to see some impressive progress being made to tackle them.

Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa, with almost 90 million citizens, and it has one of the highest fertility rates in the world -- 5.4 births per woman. But the country also has a pioneering new program that's lowering its birthrate even as it works to improve the health of all of the country's citizens.

Meet Yitayish Tsige, 27 (in the photo below, left), and Aziza Ismael, 24 (right) -- they're on the front lines of Ethiopia's health-care push and efforts to give women better reproductive care.

They and 30,000 other young women serve as rural community health workers all around the country. They get a year of training in basic preventive health care and then head back to their home communities to teach hygiene and nutrition, administer childhood immunizations, help people put up bed nets to keep out malaria-carrying mosquitoes, offer basic prenatal care, and attend to births if mothers can't get to hospitals. The health extension workers, as they're called, operate in pairs and serve about 5,000 people, spending much of their time going door to door, aided by a handful of volunteers.

One of the health workers' big responsibilities is providing family-planning information and contraception. They walk couples through their options with wall charts and an illustrated book.

They offer free contraceptives -- distributing condoms and the Pill, giving Depo-Provera shots (which work for three months), and inserting Implanon implants (which work for three years).

These family-planning services are transforming lives, like Fatuma Galato's. Here she is, below, with four of her eight children in front of her home in the rural village of Daka Werekelo, about 150 miles south of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa:

Her first seven children were spaced close together, a consequence of having no access to birth control. When health workers brought contraception to her community, she started using Depo-Provera and was then able to wait six years before having her eighth child (shown here in her arms). He's the last one, she said; she's now back on Depo.

Family planning came late to Fatuma. "We suffered a lot from ignorance, but now things are improved for the next generation," she said. That includes her 17-year-old daughter (on the right below, inside the family's two-room home), who will have many more options than her mother.

Amina Leriso (left in the photo below), who lives in the village of Galato, is another woman who was only introduced to family planning after she was well into her childbearing years. She started using contraception after her fourth child, then went off it so she could have one more, whom she's expecting right now. While Amina herself wants a large family, that's not what she wants for her daughters, including 17-year-old Neima Bederu (pictured here on the right). "My wish for my daughter is to see her complete her education, get a good job, earn a salary, be independent, and live on her own," Amina said.

Tagesse Atara (left in the photo below) and Beletech Nigatu (right), a married couple, serve as community health volunteers in Galato. They spend two mornings a week spreading information to their neighbors, and they model good health practices for the community. Thanks to family planning, the couple has been able to space out their children -- they have a son who's 7 and a daughter who's 1. Beletech now has an Implanon implant. They haven't decided whether to have more kids; they say it will depend on future earnings from their farm.

Chaltu Wata, 20 (left in the photo below), and Aster Roba, 22 (right), are two more health extension workers, based in Daka Werekelo. Aster comes from a family of 10 kids. Her mother, with no birth-control options, had about one child a year, and almost died when her 10th birth turned out to be a complicated one. Aster, who doesn't want anyone to suffer like her mom did, says that teaching people about family planning is the best part of her job. She herself is unmarried and for the time being uninterested in marriage; she said maybe she'll get around to it when she's 35. For now she wants to concentrate on her career and further her education.

Diriba Degeta, 24 (below), is also planning to postpone parenthood. He trained as a nurse and now works in the health system at the district level. He wants to marry in his early 30s and have three kids max, he said.

Ethiopia's health extension program is simple but ingenious. (Don't take my word for it; Melinda Gates says so too.) Since its launch in 2004, the program has established 16,000 health posts (small buildings, usually without electricity) in rural communities around the country, where health workers with local roots provide basic preventive services. It makes great sense in a country where 84 percent of people live in rural areas (separated from hospitals by long distances, bad roads, and a lack of cars), and where doctors are in serious short supply (many Ethiopian physicians, when their training is complete, leave the country for more lucrative opportunities). Over the first five years of the program, the ratio of health workers to citizens went from 1-to-30,000 to 1-to-2,500.

The program also appears to be creating a new generation of feminists -- young women pursuing careers outside the home, empowered to provide vital services to their communities, earning the respect of their neighbors, and serving as role models for young girls, like these below, who are clustered just outside a health post:

Of course, the health extension program is just a start -- Ethiopians need much more. And even the system that's now up and running has many shortcomings. Take, for one, contraceptive supplies. The health posts aren't always able to offer what women want. Implanon implants have only been available for a few months in some areas, but they're already in high demand from women eager for a method that works for three years. One health post I visited had an ample supply of the implants themselves (see below), but didn't have the kits needed to insert them, which include local anesthetic, a syringe, gloves, and bandages. And while health extension workers can insert the implants when they have all the necessary supplies, they don't have the skills and training to take them out, so if women have unpleasant side effects or want the implants removed for other reasons, they have to find their way to a higher-level medical professional. Considering the potential side effects of Implanon, this is a serious concern.

Solving these kinds of logistical problems is just one of oh so many challenges facing Ethiopia, complicated by the fact that most of its funding and supplies come via international donors and NGOs, each of which have their own agendas.

If current growth patterns continue, Ethiopia is projected to just about double its population by 2050 to 174 million, making it all the more difficult for its people to climb out of poverty. The government's official goal is to get the fertility rate down from 5.4 births per woman to 2.1 within five years -- extraordinarily ambitious. But even if it isn't met, the effort to spread family planning far and wide will improve the lives of millions of Ethiopian women and their families.

A big thanks to Population Action International and Pathfinder International, which together sponsored my trip to Ethiopia. They do critical work to spread family-planning services and better overall health care around the world.

By Lisa Hymas is Grist’s senior editor. Follow her on Twitter.

UN Chief warns Nigeria against population explosion

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, on Monday warned Nigeria against population explosion, saying the current figure of 158 million could balloon to 730 million by 2100.

“I am really scared about population explosion in Nigeria. It is not healthy. Nigeria should work towards attaining a maximum of three children per family,” Sachs told AFP on the margins of a presidential interactive meeting with key members of the business community.

He told the meeting earlier that an increased annual economic growth rate from the current seven percent, encouragement of integrated development in economy, agriculture, urban and rural sectors, provision of a good health system, education, power, railway, could see the country become one of the most important economies in the 21st century.

read the rest here

My comment:

This UN Secretary says in other words that if Nigeria stabilize its population right now, all the GDP growth will translate into better standard of living for Nigerian. Nigeria has the means to adopt One Child Policy right now. So, wake up leaders.

Rwanda Looks to Vasectomy to Tackle Population Growth

Rwandan, John Twizeyimana, 31, (L) standing with his wife, Francois, 26, and their two children, Ernest, 4 and Kate, 7 outside their house in the capital, Kigali. Twizeyimana says he loves his two children but doesn't want more of them and he is anxious to participate in an ambitious program by the Rwandan Ministry of Health to offer “No Scalpel Vasectomies” to thousands of Rwandese men in an effort to promote better family planning and curb population growth. –AFP Photo/Steve Terill

KIGALI: Rwandan domestic worker John Rutaremara plans to sign up for a “no-scalpel” vasectomy as soon as it becomes available in Africa’s most densely populated country: he has two children and cannot afford more.

His is a fairly unusual decision for sub-Saharan Africa where vasectomies are rare amid a widespread but misguided belief that it is tantamount to castration and impairs a man’s virility.

But Rutaremara is determined: even though his daily pay of six dollars is a good one by Rwandan standards, he and his wife struggle to make ends meet.

“We have many expenses. School fees, food, electricity are all very expensive in Kigali,” said Rutaremara, 31. “If we had more children, life would be very difficult.”

He already works 80 hours per week, leaving home each morning well before the sun rises and returning well after it sets.

“I would rather have only two children who are well taken care of and educated than have eight children who spend each day in hunger,” he said.

Rwanda is introducing the “no-scalpel” (NSV) procedure in a typically bold approach to curb an explosion in its population, which has risen fourfold over the past 50 years to top 10 million.

The tiny country is already the most densely populated in mainland Africa and the government sees further growth as one of the main threats to its achievements in rebuilding after the 1994 genocide.

Under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, Rwanda has been hailed for pioneering development policies that have helped it beat the odds and become one of the continent’s most dynamic economies.

Concerned about the pressure on scant resources, it has begun scaling up its family planning programmes to include NSV vasectomy which is quicker, cheaper and less likely to cause complications than female sterilisation.

“The procedure takes about 15 minutes and is painless. We use only a very small needle along with a local anaesthetic,” said programme trainer Leonard Kagabo.
It was developed in China in the late 1970s and introduced to the United States about a decade later, spreading across the world.

Rwanda’s NSV project initially met with controversy after media reports said the country wanted to carry out vasectomies on 700,000 men over three years.

The government was “emasculating the poor”, an opposition party quickly charged.
But the health ministry insists it had no such plan.

“There is no target to carry out 700,000 vasectomies nor will there ever be one,” ministry second-in-charge Agnes Binagwaho said.

“It would be both unethical and a violation of human rights to allocate targets to family planning options of this nature,” she said.

Some experts have expressed concern that widespread use of vasectomy would lead to lower usage of condoms and so to higher HIV rates.

But Fidel Ngabo, health ministry director of nursing, mother and child health, says that would be countered by proper education.

“We always give HIV and family planning counselling together because they go hand in hand. With vasectomies, we give this counselling both before and after the procedure,” said Ngabo.

Men wanting to sign up for the procedure must first sign a lengthy consent form which explains its irreversible nature. Married men are asked to bring along their wives to ensure their consent.

The vast majority of Rwandans are farmers whose families have lived in poverty for generations. With food insecure and land scarce, larger families are becoming less and less sustainable.

“Eighty per cent of our population lives off the land,” Ngabo said. “In the past, the more children a farmer had, the more wealth he had. But that has radically changed.

“Now more children mean more education and healthcare costs for the agricultural worker as well as less land for each child to inherit,” he said.

original post: http://www.dawn.com/2011/03/07/rwanda-looks-to-vasectomy-to-tackle-population-growth.html