273544 Real Population Crisis

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 8:45 AM - 9:00 AM

Malcolm Potts, MB, BChir, PhD, FRCOG , The Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
     
The UN Population Division projections for the 21st century assume all countries will reach replacement level fertility by 2100. This will not happen in the least developed nations with high birth rates unless important policy changes and a significant investment are made in voluntary family planning and the elimination child marriage.

In the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa the population is projected to double in 2050, at exactly the time that today's occasional extreme temperatures become the norm. With minimal education, pervasive poverty, and often an abysmal status of women there is no achievable way to accelerate socio-economic development in the least developed countries without also slowing rapid population growth.

Actions taken today might reduce today's global socio-economic divisions by 2100. Because of demographic momentum, failure to take action today will lead to a more deeply divided, conflict ridden world, with appalling gender inequities by 2100.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand that population growth can be slowed in a human right’s framework 2. Understand the inescapable nature of demographic momentum and need to distinguish between population projections based on evidence and those based on theory.

Keywords: Population, Maternal and Child Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have 40 years experience in population and international family planning, beginning as the first Medical Director of the IPPF, moving to be president and CEO of FHI and ending with 20 years at UC Berkeley working in Africa (particularly Nigeria and Ehtiopia), Bangladesh,Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4046.0: International Maternal, Neonatal & Child Health