THE rapid growth in population makes Pakistan fight a losing battle in its efforts to break the cycle of poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy. We failed to achieve all the eight Millennium Development Goals and have almost no chance of achieving any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals required to be achieved by 2030.

The world recognised the vital relationship between population and progress a long time ago. Most European countries now have a fertility rate of less than one per cent. Many countries of Southeast Asia like Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand have successfully followed suit.

Iran and Bangladesh are just about the finest examples of countries that used sensible and rational methods to bring down their fertility rates from more than five (50 years ago) to 2.1 and 2.0 respectively. Pakistan stands crawling at an unenviable fertility rate of 3.6.

The successive governments have shown a great sense of irresponsibility in not making an all-out concerted effort to manage the burgeoning population of Pakistan.

As a small step in mass awareness, can we request all TV channels to show in a corner of the screen a live clock that displays the latest population figures?

The newspapers too, just like the daily Covid-19 numbers, should show on the front pages the latest daily population figures and the change in the last 24 hours.

Naeem Sadiq

Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2020