“African elites have long had the perception that rapid population growth was not an issue because of the vastness of Africa, abundance of resources, relatively low population densities and, more recently, the threat of HIV/AIDS,” but as rapid population growth becomes a more urgent problem across the continent, that view is increasingly falling out of favor, said World Bank lead demographer John May in a recent interview with the African Press Organization. As governments work to improve their population programs, the World Bank is adopting “new demography” principles that examine age structures, dependency ratios, human capital investments, and the demographic dividend to craft cross-sectoral approaches to population policy.

Current demographic trends, the result of reduced infant and child mortality and slowly falling fertility rates, will double the population of Africa by 2036 if left unaddressed, said May. The security implications of this population growth are readily apparent. Rapid population growth has been identified as a factor in increasing resource scarcity and can help lead to conflict. In Sudan, for example, the pressures of overgrazing, desertification, ongoing drought, and escalating competition between pastoralist and agriculturalist communities have contributed to violence. Kenya presents a similar scenario: Rapid and uneven population growth led to land scarcity in the late 1980s, exacerbating latent political and ethnic tensions. The violent conflict that erupted between 1991 and 1993 was fueled in part by natural resource scarcity. More recently, insecure land tenure, shaky property rights, and competition over natural resources have triggered violence across East Africa. Population pressures also play a part, and some argue that demographically-induced land scarcity was at the heart of violence in Kenya earlier this year.

May lamented that far less attention has been paid to population than to humanitarian crises, good governance, and climate change—despite compelling evidence that population growth is likely to negatively impact the chances for peace. Sexual and reproductive health, for example, form 20 percent of the global disease burden, and there is compelling evidence that good reproductive health leads to poverty reduction. He reminds us that demographic issues are inextricably tied to larger development issues, and must be addressed together.

Some countries have successfully reduced fertility rates, May noted. In the 1960s, the Tunisian government introduced a program to reduce fertility rates through increased education for girls, government provision of family planning services, and legal reforms to increase the economic status of rural women and girls. Today, the country boasts a replacement-level fertility rate. Efforts to improve gender equity are highly effective in reducing unsustainable population growth: “It could be argued that the population issue in sub-Saharan Africa is in essence a gender issue,” said May, who argued that “[e]conomic and social development is of course the best contraceptive.”

“The task ahead is huge and difficult, however some concrete results have already been obtained,” said May. He offered a simple suggestion to governments wondering how to craft population policies: “let people, especially women, decide for themselves and…provide them with the means to exert their choices.”

The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) officially launched its 2008 World Population Data Sheet yesterday at the National Press Club. The 2008 Data Sheet features key population, health, environmental, and economic indicators for more than 200 countries. New in this year’s edition, co-authored by Carl Haub and Mary Mederios Kent, are data on percent of population in urban areas, number of vehicles per 100,000 people, and percent of population with access to improved drinking water.

Several findings highlight the significant health inequalities between wealthy and poor countries. For example, while around 1 in 6,000 women in developed countries dies from pregnancy-related causes, in the 50 least-developed countries, the risk is an astonishing 1 in 22. Because maternal mortality is generally seen as a proxy for the general state of a country’s health care system, these statistics point to alarming systemic health care failings in many of the world’s least-developed countries.

The 2008 World Population Data Sheet also highlights disparities between developed and developing countries in population growth rate trends; as wealthier countries’ populations stagnate or even begin to decline, the populations of the world’s poorest countries continue to grow at a rapid clip. PRB president Bill Butz noted that “[n]early all of the world population growth is now concentrated in the world’s poorer countries,” and that “[e]ven the small amount of overall growth in the wealthier nations will largely result from immigration.” As Kent pointed out at yesterday’s press conference, the United States is the major exception to this trend, because most of its population growth over the next several decades will come from natural increase.

Unfortunately, the countries with the least access to improved water sources—and therefore some of the highest rates of diarrheal disease and child malnutrition—have among the world’s fastest-growing populations. For instance, in Ethiopia, which has a total fertility rate of 5.3 births per woman, only 42 percent of the population has access to an improved water source, and in Afghanistan, which has a total fertility rate of 6.8, the figure is a mere 22 percent.

“Over the next twenty years physical pressures – population, resource, energy, climatic, and environmental – could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty,” warns the newly released 2008 National Defense Strategy. Demographic trends, resource scarcity, and environmental change all inform the updated strategy, which encourages international cooperation to address these impending challenges.

The “Population Forum” in the September issue of WorldWatch Magazine “reveals that empowering women to make their own family size choices…is the best strategy to tackle population growth” and the environmental and security problems linked to it. A short history of population trends is available online; the website offers free previews of Lori Hunter’s article on PHE and gender, as well as “Population and Security” by Elizabeth Leahy and ECSP’s own Sean Peoples. Bernard Orimbo links population growth and environmental degradation in his native Kenya, and PAI staff discuss urbanization.

Climate change threatens to exaggerate the challenges faced by the billions of people worldwide who depend upon natural resources for their survival. But the competition and, at times, violent conflict that results from increased resource scarcity is not a given; the recently released World Resources Report 2008 finds that “well-designed, community-based enterprises” can ease the environmental burden on natural resources and pave the way for sustainable dependence on the land.

At the 2008 World Expo’s “Water and Conflict Resolution” week, municipal representatives working with Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) presented case studies from its “Good Water Neighbors” programs: cross-border solutions for the Lower Jordan River; the Jordan River Peace Park project; and the town of Auja in the Jordan River Valley. Speaking about these programs the Wilson Center, FOEME’s Gidon Bromberg said that “by working together, not only do we advance the environmental issues…we also advance peace between our peoples.”

“Some argue that global demographic trends are progressively pushing the world toward greater peace and prosperity. They are wrong. The risks of both chaotic state collapse and neoauthoritarian reaction are rising,” argue Neil Howe and Richard Jackson in “Battle of the (Youth) Bulge,” published in the National Interest.

A recent online discussion with the Population Reference Bureau’s Jason Bremner covered a variety of topics related to environmental change and migration, including climate change migrants, rural-to-rural migration, and disease vectors.

Rising food and fuel prices could trigger turmoil in Guinea-Bissau, says the latest report from the International Monetary Fund. The country already suffers from chronic food insecurity, reports IRIN News.

Share your thoughts and ask experts questions about “climate refugees” and other hot environmental migration topics at two upcoming online discussions.

On July 30, from 1-2 p.m., Population Reference Bureau’s Jason Bremner will take questions on “Environmental Change: What Are the Links With Migration?” Bremner, who spent several years studying migration and environment links in the Galapagos and Amazon regions in Latin America, will answer your questions about the relationships between migration and the environment, current trends, and future migrations related to environmental change. You may submit questions in advance or during the discussion at http://discuss.prb.org

From August 18-29, a cyberseminar sponsored by PERN and the Environmental Change & Security Program tackles “Environmentally Induced Population Displacements.” In an online seminar, experts and network members will analyze the evidence for environment’s role in migration, including the potential for future population displacements as a result of climate change. PERN Cyberseminars are conducted using a standard email discussion list; instructions are online.

“Population, Health, and Environment: Exploring the Connections,” an original ECSP video, offers a lively, brief, and accessible explanation of population-health-environment connections, with examples and photos from successful programs in the Philippines. Presenter Lori Hunter of the University of Colorado, Boulder, spoke at the Wilson Center earlier this year as part of ECSP’s PHE meeting series. View the video on YouTube, then rate it, comment on it, favorite it, or post a video response.

Mark Jenkins explores the July 2007 murders of the Virunga mountain gorillas in a piece in National Geographic. The piece is accompanied by a stunning photo slideshow by photographer Brent Stirton.

The Toronto Star takes a look at female feticide and infanticide in India, and how young women are now being trafficked from rural areas to serve as brides in areas where the gender gap is widest.

Climate change is responsible for an upswing in malaria in Kenya’s highlands, reports IPS News. “There is a clear correlation between climatic variations and malaria epidemics,” said Dr. Willis Akhwale, head of Kenya’s National Malaria Control Programme.

A New York Times article explores the causes of low birthrates in Europe—and particularly low ones in southern Europe.

The World Health Organization has released Safer water, better health, the first report to provide country-level estimates of the burden of disease caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

“The geopolitics of the twenty-first century may well be the geopolitics of scarcity—of land, of food, of water, of energy,” write the authors of Environmental Change and the New Security Agenda: Implications for Canada’s security and environment, a new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The report says current approaches to environmental issues are “short-sighted” and calls for international acknowledgement that the environment is not a “soft” security issue.

“Climate change is today one of the main drivers of forced displacement,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told The Guardian in an interview. He warned that the number of people displaced is rising dramatically and will continue to do so, and that global funding has failed to keep pace with the growing challenge. He also noted that existing legal structures to manage refugee flows are out of touch with the increasing influence of climate change.

“The world’s poorest of the poor live in the toughest areas of the planet—the drylands,” says recent ECSP speaker Masego Madzwamuse in the BBC’s latest Green Room feature. She argues that “humanitarian and food relief follow the TV headlines,” and that only sustained and concerted efforts respecting indigenous experience and wisdom will be able to ease the plight of the world’s “dryland dwellers.”

The 2008 EPD WaterAid Madagascar team at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs presented its findings in WaterAid Madagascar: Valuating Economic and Social Impacts of Improved Water and Sanitation Services. The team found that “Madagascar’s development goals could be significantly advanced by adequate water and sanitation services” and encouraged increased public awareness of the links between access to safe water and sanitation services and economic development.

The Population Council has released a new working paper, “Fertility transitions in developing countries: Progress or stagnation?” While recent declines in fertility levels in developing countries have led many to assume that the trend will continue, the paper finds that fertility rates in many countries have in fact stalled, a trend that could have long-term security implications worldwide.