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.
Population and Nutrition
There are more than 925 million chronically undernourished people in the world, 98 per cent of whom live in developing countries. Although every effort is made to combat hunger, food production in developing countries will continue to lag behind population growth in the future. Every year, approximately 4 million children die of famine and malnutrition.
So far, global food production has increased to a greater extent than world population has been growing. The “Green Revolution” led to an enormous rise in grain production during the 1960s. Food production tripled between 1960 and 1990, mainly as a result of the cultivation of high yield varieties (such as wheat and rice), the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as new irrigation techniques.
The stork and the plow
However, the global food supply trends look worse today: according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the demand for food in developing countries will rise by 2.2 per cent by 2015. However, agricultural production in these countries will only rise by 2 per cent during the same period.
Ever more people are affected by land scarcity
In addition, the amount of farmland per capita of the world’s population is decreasing. While it was 0.44 hectares in 1960, it was only 0.27 hectares in 1990. In 2025, only 0.17 hectares of farmland are expected to be available per person. The threshold at which sufficient food supply can be ensured is 0.07 hectares of cultivable land per capita. From 1975 until today, the number of people affected by land scarcity has more than doubled, from 175 million to 465 million. By the year 2025 the number will be as many as 740 million.
