Volume 4, Number 46

November 9, 2001

New UNFPA Report Contradicted by More Credible UN Sources

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) A new report issued by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) contends that population growth has resulted in human misery and environmental ruin throughout the world. UNFPA claims these problems will become calamitous unless women's access to reproductive services - including abortion - is recognized as an international human right.

     UNFPA's annual "State of the World Population" ("Footprints and Milestones") issued this week is almost completely contradicted by a report issued by the UN's official statisticians, the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. In "World Population Monitoring 2001, Population, Environment and Development," these statisticians highlight key improvements in human living conditions and predict continued improvements in the future. Most importantly, they conclude that population growth has not been primarily responsible for environmental damage, and that growth will not overwhelm food supplies for the next fifty years.

     The ultimate message of "Footprints and Milestones" is that the world must slow human population growth in order to save the environment. "But it is clear that providing full access to reproductive health services, which are relatively inexpensive, is far less costly in the long run than the environmental consequences of the faster population growth that will result if reproductive health needs are not met." The Population Division report comes to the opposite conclusion. "Even for those environmental problems that are concentrated in countries with rapid population growth, it is not necessarily the case that population increase is the main root cause, nor that slowing population growth would make an important contribution to resolving the problem."

     UNFPA claims that population growth has lead to intractable poverty, and that "poverty persists and, in many parts of the world, deepens." According to the Population Division, however, "From 1900 to 2000, world population grew from 1.6 billion persons to 6.1 billion. However, while the world population increased close to 4 times, world real gross domestic output increased 20 to 40 times, allowing the world to not only sustain a four-fold population increase, but also to do so at vastly higher standards of living." The Population Division adds, ".even many low-income countries have achieved substantial improvements in the quality and length of life."

     According to the UNFPA report, "In many countries population growth has raced ahead of food production in recent years." Because of population growth, ".some 800 million people are chronically malnourished and 2 billion people lack food security." The Population Division, however, disagrees. Food is not scarce. "Over the period 1961-1998 world per capita food available for human consumption increased by 24 per cent, and there is enough being produced for everyone on the planet to be adequately nourished." Hunger is not caused by population growth. "People have inadequate physical and/or economic access to food as a result of poverty, political instability, economic inefficiency and social inequity."

     UNFPA is considered a highly ideological agency with an agenda of population control and abortion. Population Division head Joseph Chamie said yesterday, "UNFPA is a fund; they have an agenda. The Population Division does not put out a report that has any advocacy role." UNFPA's report received only four paragraphs in the New York Times.

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