December 4, 2002	Wednesday	Ramazan 28,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: Dr Olivier Brasseur, the country representative of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on Tuesday urged for an urgent action to combat poor reproductive health, unwanted pregnancies and eliminate illiteracy and gender discrimination in the developing countries.

Speaking at the launching of the State of World Population report 2002 here at a local hotel, he said Pakistan was among those 50 countries where the fertility rate was still too high and their population would increase from 600 million to 1.8 billion in the next 50 years.

He said the population growth rate of Pakistan was such that in next 30 years 150 million people would be below the age of 18 whom the government had to provide social services including health, education. Therefore the issue of population was very critical to Pakistan, he said.

The report has put the population of Pakistan at 148.7 million as compared with 140 million with a projected population of 344.2 million in 2050 at an average population growth rate of 2.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, in his speech said the government had evidence to believe that the population growth rate had started declining to a level of 2.1 per cent. With the current figure, it was estimated that we would have a population in between 205 to 220 million by the end of year 2025, which he said, was still manageable.

Tracing the history, he said the population in Pakistan increased from 1947 to 1980 rather it almost doubled from 32.5 million to 60 million but then it started to slow down. The 1981 population census suggested that the population growth rate was estimated to be at 3.6 million but the 1998 census brought out a pleasant surprise, as it put the total population of Pakistan at 130.6 million with a growth rate of 2.6 per cent.

If the current population growth rate was successfully reduced significantly to 1.5 or 1.3 in next two decades, it would mean that the total fertility rate would be reduced from 6.5 per cent (five children in a family) to an average of 2.6 per cent (two children in a family).

Mr Shahid said over the last decade, successive governments had tried to bring down fiscal deficit from 6.5 per cent of the GDP to 6 per cent but the reduction had gone down at the public sector development, which had now been reduced from 6 per cent of the GDP to 3 per cent.

To attack the poverty issues, efforts were also underway to regularise kutcha abadis in different parts of the country and provide pieces of land to the poor.

He also expressed the confidence that with the coming of new government, more emphasis would be laid on building up social assets and more resources would be available for health, education, poverty reduction and population planning.

Poor health, illiteracy, inadequate schooling, social exclusion, powerlessness and gender discrimination contribute to poverty. Poor health diminishes personal capacity, lowers productivity and reduces earnings.

A high prevalence of disease and poor health in a country harms economic performance while higher life expectancy, a key indicator of health status, stimulates economic growth. An analysis of 53 countries between 1953 and 1990 found that higher adult survival rates were responsible for about 8 per cent of total economic growth.

The report has asked the governments, communities, the private sector and the international community to cooperate closely while the donors should encourage partnerships among governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Particular attention should be paid to incorporate the views of the poor in the design, implementation and monitoring of programmes.