ISLAMABAD, June 20: Population growth rate in the country will remain a major hurdle in the way of sustained development until the federal government reviews its population-based policies.
This was stated by Senator Sanaullah Baloch who was speaking at the closing session of the two-day conference on ‘Population and Future: what lies ahead?’.
The conference was organized by Population and Environment Communication Centre of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Mr Baloch said the annual budgetary allocations were made on the basis of population size of provinces, seats’ reservation in the National Assembly had the same yardstick and even quota in the CSS was determined on the number of individuals a province had. Therefore, which province will like to decrease its population through whatsoever measures the government has been planning over the years for population control, he added.
He pointed out that unlike the prevalent view in the conference, he did not see population growth as a challenge or problem for his province as in the present political structure the population was the sole criteria for resource distribution, share in jobs and representation in the parliament.
He said this fact acted as a temptation for smaller provinces to increase their population to match that of Punjab.
Najma Sadiq of Shirkat Gah, in her paper, said traditional agricultural method had saved humanity for centuries. However, during the last few decades, some multilateral institutions are bent upon replacing it with chemical farming which does not respect bio-farming thus going against nature, she said.
The country representative of UNDP in Pakistan, Onder Yucer, said good governance and participatory approach to development were the keys to control population growth rate in Pakistan.
In the concluding session a set of recommendations were formulated by all the participants and were presented by the country’s noted development economist, Dr A.R. Kamal of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, which were subsequently discussed by the participants.
Mr Kamal stressed the need to undertake an integrated approach towards the problem of poverty and population. He said none of the issues pertaining to population or poverty could be handled in isolation since they were closely linked.
The conference recommended that all political parties must unite to ensure that basic education be declared a fundamental constitutional right by promulgating it as compulsory and equal for all with increased budgeting allocations to health and population sector.
The conference also recommended to put human security ahead of territorial security and to invest in public goods and reform science sector delivery.
It also recommended making policy formulation and execution transparent by adding civil society group’s representatives at the PC-1 stage.
Finally Dr Jennifer Bennett, project director of PECC, SDPI, thanked the participants and speakers and remarked that set of policy recommendation would be circulated widely to influence policy-makers for a better understanding of the issue and situation.