Population Dynamics
As of the year 2011, seven billion people now live on Earth. Much has to be done in order to reduce poverty, to provide universal access to health care and family planning, and to decrease our high consumption of resources. This is where DSW steps in with its development programmes and advocacy work.
Many women give birth to more children than they want due to a lack of contraceptives and effective family planning. With the implementation of our Youth-to-Youth Initiative, we are educating thousands of young people in Africa about their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and on how to create a healthy and independent future for themselves.
Furthermore, DSW's comprehensive advocacy work is done by talking to and engaging with national, local and international political authorities. In our dialogue we advocate for the necessity of voluntary family planning and reproductive health.
Ageing
Today there are already more than about 784 million people in the world who are older than 60 years. The trend towards ageing societies can also be observed in developing countries. With a view to the prevalent lack of social security systems, the prerequisites for providing the coming old generation with sufficient care are particularly poor.
If, according to the medium UN forecast, world population has grown to more than 9.2 billion people in 2050, more than two billion people will be over the age of 60. Global ageing will pose major challenges not only to the individual countries but also to global development cooperation. According to Frederick Fenech, Director of the Malta United Nations International Institute on Ageing (INIA), there is an urgent need to include older people in programs to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The age factor should be as much a priority as the fight against poverty, says Fenech.
Societies are ageing - also in poor countries
It is a myth that ageing societies are mainly a problem of industrialized nations. Also in developing countries the population is ageing. Today, merely nine per cent of the people in these countries are more than 60 years old. By 2050, this share will more than double, to 20.2 per cent.
Whereas the ageing process has taken more time in the north, it is taking place with breathtaking speed in Asian countries like China and India. The two most populated countries in the world are already home to more than a third of old people worldwide. The prerequisites of developing countries to cope with the age-related shifts in their demographic structures are very poor.
As opposed to industrialized nations, where most senior citizens can enjoy a secure old age, old people in developing countries are condemned to a life in poverty. The majority of them live in rural areas, where economic need is particularly great. The increasing life expectancy of the world population—only excluding people living in sub-Saharan Africa due to particular economic hardship and the HIV/AIDS epidemic—has shaped the phenomenon of the fourth generation: the age group of people over 80. For many families, these old people become a burden when they can no longer work.
“While the industrial countries first became rich and then grew old, the developing countries are getting old before they get rich", Fenech explains the dimension of the problems which will face the countries of the South in the coming years.
