| deepak_bista |
Posted
on 14-Oct-03 05:13 PM
Population and Security: How Demographic Chnage Can Lead to Violent Conflict
"While the marked decrease in population growth in many countries and regions is good news for those concerned about global populations, it offers no clear relief for concerns about the security implications of population change."
As we across into the new century, the world seems finally to have turned the corner on population growth. A combination of increased education for women, national and international support for policies of population planning and the spraed of economic development and accompanying movement along the demographic transition frontier have led to failing population growth rates around the world. Whether among the behemoths-China and India-or among the smaller but rapidly growing nations-such as saudi Arabia, Kenya and Malawi-population growth rates have dropped dramatically in the last decade.
Yet while population growth rates have dropped around the world, they remain high in some areas. In particular, many nations in the Middle East. Southeast Asia and Central and Northern Africa still are growing at nearly 3 percent per year, a growth rate that leads to doubling of population in approximately 25 years. Moreover, although in most countries the rate of population growth has slowed, the absolute number of people being added to the world's population has not; the largest number of women of childbearing age in the developing world, carrying the momentum of past population growth, ensure that evn while rates fall as a percentage of the existing population, the number of new births each year continues to rise. For example, China will still grow by 10 to 11 million people per year fot the next fifteen years. The world as a whole will add roughly 80 million people per year, or another 960 million (that is another India) in the next dozen years.
THE ENVIRONMENT AS A CAUSE OF VIOLENT CONFLICTS
Ooops, time to go to bed for now.
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