Population factor... is missing from U.N. millennium goals

Five years ago the United Nations adopted eight millennium development goals to improve the quality of life on this planet but failed to clearly identify a major underlying cause of these enormous obstacles in the path of human progress: rapid population growth.

The goals include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger, universal primary education, a two-thirds reduction of child mortality, cutting back maternal mortality by three-quarters, the promotion of gender equality, ensuring environmental sustainability, and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases -- all by 2015.

The omission of a direct reference to population growth in the millennium goals was not an oversight, but rather a deliberate calculation. By skirting the issue of high fertility in the poorest countries of the world, the U.N. sought to avoid confrontations with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, which objects to modern contraception, as well as pro-natalist ideologues, who measure national strength by quantity rather than quality.

As reasonable as they are, none of the millennium goals will be achieved unless efforts are accelerated to reduce rapid population growth. More than 80 per cent of the world's current 6.5 billion people live in the poorest countries -- the very countries that are projected to account for virtually all of the 2.6 billion more people estimated to be added to the world by midcentury.

To balance the world's population with its environment and resources, the nations of the world must prioritize four key areas:

* Eradication of illiteracy, especially among females: Studies show that whenever a woman achieves an eighth-grade education, she has about half the number of pregnancies as women who have not had the opportunity to attend school. While every child in the world is entitled to at least a basic education, young girls historically have been denied this opportunity.

* Full employment opportunities for women: Research shows that when women can participate in the paid economy, they opt for smaller families than women who do not have access to paid employment. Currently, women perform two-thirds of the world's work but earn only 10 percent of the world's income and own only 1 percent of the world's property.

* Reduction of infant mortality: Parents who are reasonably assured that their children will survive beyond age five choose to have fewer pregnancies. Some of the most impressive declines in fertility have been made in countries that are making the greatest progress in lowering infant and child mortality.

* Universal access to the knowledge and the affordable means for preventing unintended pregnancies: Family planning options should range from natural methods to more modern medically approved methods. Couples should be able to have only the number of children they want and are able to properly care for and love.

Achieving population stabilization through universal access to family planning information, education and services should not only have been included in the MDGs, it should have been emphasized.

Evidence that these goals must include a strong commitment to voluntary fertility reduction is contained within the United Nations-sponsored millennium ecosystems assessment.

Compiled by 1,360 scientists from 96 countries, the report released earlier this year was the largest study ever undertaken to determine the consequences of human industriousness and indulgence on the planet's natural bounty. The most unsettling finding of this assessment is that over the past 50 years, as world population doubled, human activity depleted 60 percent of the world's grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes. Some 1.1 billion people still cannot rely on clean drinking water and 3 million to 4 million people die each year from waterborne diseases.

The consensus of scientists contributing to the report is that over the next 50 years there will be increased demands for food, clean water and fuel, hastening the loss of forests, fish and fresh water reserves and leading to more frequent disease outbreaks.

According to the study, fully one-third of all existing animal and plant species are at risk of extinction. Allowing these grave warnings to go unheeded would amount to unparalleled and inexcusable human folly, with the very real possibility of placing Homo sapiens at the top of the 21st century's endangered species list.

~ Werner Fornos, president emeritus of the Population Institute in Washington, D.C., is a recipient of the United Nations Population Award and a global expert on demographic issues. He was recently a guest lecturer at Southeast Missouri State University.