The Critical Link Between Population Growth and Hunger
Washington DC - August 22, 2005Severe food shortages in Niger have captured the world’s attention by illustrating the devastating nature of chronic hunger and famine. Chronic hunger, also known as food insecurity, affects approximately 850 million people worldwide and causes the vast majority of hunger-related deaths in the world today. While poverty and natural disasters are the most common causes of food insecurity, rapid population growth is intensifying the situation in parts of the developing world by overburdening already strained financial and natural resources.
Africa has the highest number of countries facing food emergencies – the average number of which has almost tripled since the 1980s. African countries also have some of the highest birth rates in the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, where some countries’ populations double and triple every 30-50 years, the number of malnourished people has skyrocketed from 88 million in 1970 to about 200 million today. In Niger, women give birth to an average of eight children (the highest fertility rate of any country in the world), and only 5 percent of married women use modern contraceptives.
Slowing population growth is essential in reducing chronic hunger and famine in the developing world. Thus, greater access to voluntary family planning programs that provide couples with the information and contraceptives they need to plan and space their childbearing is urgently required. Despite this need, U.S. funding for international family planning programs has been cut by 35 percent over the last 10 years, and donations of desperately needed condoms and contraceptives have been curtailed due to restrictive U.S. foreign policies, such as the Mexico City Policy.
The critical link between support for reproductive health and the reduction of chronic hunger is particularly poignant now as world leaders prepare to meet at the World Summit in New York (Sept. 14-17) to review progress made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Unless greater investments are made in critical reproductive health services, donor countries risk jeopardizing their other efforts to eradicate hunger and achieve food security throughout the developing world.Severe food shortages in Niger have captured the world’s attention by illustrating the devastating nature of chronic hunger and famine. Chronic hunger, also known as food insecurity, affects approximately 850 million people worldwide and causes the vast majority of hunger-related deaths in the world today. While poverty and natural disasters are the most common causes of food insecurity, rapid population growth is intensifying the situation in parts of the developing world by overburdening already strained financial and natural resources.
Africa has the highest number of countries facing food emergencies – the average number of which has almost tripled since the 1980s. African countries also have some of the highest birth rates in the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, where some countries’ populations double and triple every 30-50 years, the number of malnourished people has skyrocketed from 88 million in 1970 to about 200 million today. In Niger, women give birth to an average of eight children (the highest fertility rate of any country in the world), and only 5 percent of married women use modern contraceptives.
Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.
