A great deal of compassion and support has been expressed by the American people as they have watched the Ethiopian tragedy unfold on their television screens. That is understandable and even expected.
What is more difficult to understand are those misleading reports attributing the cause of the tragedy solely to famine caused by drought. This is a shortsighted viewpoint, to say the least.
Of course, drought has played a role, as have other factors like migration, civil wars and politics. But none of these is the main reason. The underlying cause for what has occurred in Ethiopia and its neighboring countries is overpopulation: too many people living in an area with too few resources to sustain them.
The Ethiopian tragedy would have occurred with or without the drought. It was inevitable. Demographers have been predicting it for at least four years, just as they are predicting similar tragedies in other parts of Africa. In another part of the world, Bangladesh may be the next ”Ethiopia.”
Third World countries are adding too many people without the economies or the food production to take care of them. Eighty-five million people are being added to the world population each year, with 90 percent of this growth in the already struggling poorest part of the world. Between now and the turn of the century, the world will grow from 4.8 billion to 6.1 billion people–the equivalent of the population of the City of Chicago every 13 days.
Africa is the continent facing the most crucial problems because its population is the fastest-growing. Its population today is 531 million, but by the year 2000 it will have risen to 855 million. It doesn`t take a mathematical genius to see that if Africa has serious problems today, they are going to escalate dramatically in the next few years.
At a World Bank symposium this month in Washington, it was stated that with current death rates and the age structure in developing countries, an average of four children per couple assures a population growth rate of at least 2 percent a year. Growth at a rate of 2 percent annually means that in 100 years a population grows to eight times its original size. At 3 percent a year it grows 20 times.
By the turn of the century, 30 of Africa`s 51 countries will be unable to feed themselves, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
The recently completed World Fertility Survey conducted in 60 nations found that 400 million women did not want their last child; nor did they want any more children. These women lacked the education and the means to determine the size of their families and the spacing between births. An immediate doubling of U.S. aid for international family planning assistance to $580 million a year would mean 100 million of these women could receive
contraceptive help. As a result, world population growth could be stabilized at 8 billion in the next century, instead of the projected 12 billion to 14 billion.
Compare this amount to the more than $1 billion expended by the U.S. in 1984 for food and famine relief to only 18 African countries. Population assistance is much less costly than famine relief. Famine relief is projected to cost up to $1.7 billion by the year 2000 when population will have risen from 215 million to 339 million in these countries. Additional family planning services would have a dramatic impact in reducing these dollar outlays.
It also would require more vigorous leadership by the United States than is currently apparent. It is in the nation`s economic, political and security interests to help solve the Third World`s population problems.
It is important to emphasize, too, that each individual country must be responsible for providing its own solutions to reduce fertility rates. This will require political commitment, motivation and free access to readily available family planning services. Where this has been tried–Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea–the results have been highly encouraging.
Family planning methods are closely tied to education. Studies have shown that women who have completed primary school have fewer children than women with no education. But there are 800 million people in the world who cannot read or write, and two-thirds of them are women. The illiteracy rate in Africa is 73 percent.
Population affects the quality of life within a country, from birth to death. To bring population under control, it must be emphasized that family planning will improve life standards for the individual family. This means family planning must be accompanied by economic development, better educational opportunities more jobs and a more secure outlook for the future. It is an awesome challenge. But it must be undertaken if we do not want starvation and suffering to be the methods used to control the world`s ever-increasing population growth.
