The relevance of population for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals

Three important facts, dictated by the bio-physics of our finite planet, are widely ignored:
a) Total human impact on the planet equals, by definition, average impact per person multiplied by the number of people; so each additional person increases the rate of ecological degradation;
b) Natural resources per person are, by definition, total natural resources divided by the number of people; so each additional person increases the rate of resource depletion and reduces everyone else’s ‘share’;
c) Like growth in anything physical on a physically finite planet, population growth will definitely end at some point, either sooner by fewer births or later by more deaths; ie through contraception backed by policy and resources, or by the ‘natural’ controls by which every other species is kept in balance with its habitat - famine, disease and predation/war.
Environmentalists and economists across the UN and globally show no awareness of these, with potentially disastrous consequences. Examples are given; reasons including irrational taboos are analysed; underlying assumptions listed; the three disciplines compared; and a proactive role for population scientists proposed.

Recent literature on maternal and child mortality foster that world is observing a spectacular progress towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5; however, such progress is resulting into convergence/divergence across the worldwide countries is yet to answer? This study re-assessed the progress of 187 countries worldwide in terms of MDGs 4 and 5 by nuanced econometric models to identify discrepancies in such progress. The results of both parametric and non parametric convergence measures suggest that the absolute convergence in progress of MMR across the world countries is evident only in the recent period, 2000-2008. Progress in all child mortality indicators are divergent and such divergence is increasing for the recent periods. This study suggest that there is no doubt in the fact that there is a considerable progress in both maternal and child mortality indicators. However, a mere progress does not warranty the convergence in progress across 187 countries.

Objective We estimate increases in reproductive-age life expectancy (RALE) in select African countries over the past 20 years and the proportion of overall gains attributable to decreases in maternal mortality. Methods RALE is the average number of years that women at age 15 would be expected to live between 15 and 49 if current mortality situations prevail. Using multiple rounds of data from country-specific Demographic and Health Surveys, we calculate all-cause mortality and maternal-mortality eliminated life tables to estimate gains in RALE from the mid-1990s until present day. We will also estimate the proportion of RALE gains that arose as a result of declining maternal mortality and gains that could be garnered should maternal mortality be eliminated. Preliminary Results We estimate that gains in RALE from elimination of maternal mortality fluctuate between .15 and 1.5 years across countries. Elimination of maternal mortality makes up between 4% to 46% of potential gains in RALE if all mortality were eliminated. Conclusions Maternal mortality is a relatively rare event, yet it is still a very important component of RALE. Averting the burden of maternal deaths could return a significant increase in the most productive ages of human life.

In the past decade, accelerated, yet insufficient progress in child mortality reduction to reach MDG 4 and a rapid increase in development assistance for health (DAH) to resource-poor settings for financing child health-related activities have been observed. Given the increase in DAH to child medical care from 1.67 billion in 2003 to 4.44 billion in 2010 (in constant 2010 US$), tracking of donor funding to child health is crucial for assessing aid effectiveness in improving child health.

This study provides new time-series cross-country estimates for global development assistance to child health with a new definition based on a demographic model of determinants of child survival over an extended time series from 1995 to 2010. Data comes from several sources, including the OECD's Creditor Reporting System. Unlike previous studies, we estimate aid from non-medical sectors, such as sanitation, food, and nutrition, which directly influence child health. Our study uses a multi-disciplinary approach to estimate DAH and improves the estimates in terms of their comparability and completeness. We conduct a descriptive study on the portion of assistance allocated to countries with the highest child mortality rates and expect to see an increase of DAH to child health both at the global level and in countries with high mortality rates.

The present paper is a trial to assess the magnitude of poverty and its variations among regions and socioeconomic sectors of Egypt. Causes of poverty and characteristics of the poor are discussed aiming to identify empirical policies to reduce poverty. Poverty profile analyzed using data from the Egypt Integrated Household Survey (EIHS). Our results indicate that poverty rate in Egypt increased from 16.7% of the population in 2000 to 25.2% in 2010. High illiteracy rate, high population growth, low employment opportunities, and Ineffective policies are the main causes of poverty in Egypt. Poverty is highly concentrated in Upper Egypt governorates. Poverty is over-represented in agricultural activities. Egyptians spend half of their income on food and drink, followed by housing (18%). Share of health services not exceeds 8% of their income while entertainment and culture takes up to 2.2% of family expenditures. Illiteracy, child labor, large household size, high fertility rate, and families headed by female are the main socioeconomic characteristics associated with poverty in Egypt. Income generating activities and good distribution policies are important policies instruments to reduce poverty and achieving social equality.

It is important to develop a methodology to capture the evolution of the MDGs from the intramunicipal or local to the national levels and in a way that makes possible an international comparison, to support performance analysis and possible adjustments to the targets one wants to achieve.
To accomplish this analysis two administrative units were selected: the municipality of Ilhabela, on the coast of São Paulo, Brazil, and the municipality of Porto Novo, on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde.
The selected indicators are: literacy rate for the population aged between 15 and 24 years, ratio of literate women and men and population with access to improved sanitation.

This paper aims to track the Millennium Development Goals by districts in India using District Level Household and Facility Survey-3 data. The findings reveal that more than half of the districts are still underneath stern poverty; the districts will very soon achieve universal primary education; primary education has overcome gender disparity in all the districts, but gender disparity in secondary education still exists in most of the districts; coverage of measles vaccination in all the districts is improving; in more than half of the districts occurrence of institutional births is very less; knowledge of HIV/AIDS is wide spread among women, on the contrary low condom use among men is a matter of concern to combat HIV/AIDS, ensuring environmental sustainability in all the districts is a challenging task for India. Achieving the MDGs is a critical challenge for India and it has just five years to translate the goals into reality.

HIV/AIDS has come to have great important and wholly negative impacts on the population dynamics of most of sub Saharan Africa including Cameroon since the beginning of the 1980s. Any analysis of both short and medium term demographic trends of Cameroon without due consideration of the HIV/AIDS infection factor will be unrealistic. Even though, the estimated HIV/AIDS infection rate of 11.0% was found to be an exaggeration by findings of the 2004 and 2008 Cameroon Demographic and Health Surveys which put the infection rate at 5.5%, the damage of HIV/AIDS infection on life expectancy, population growth rate and numbers, death rates, median age as well as population structure will remain important at least for the short or medium terms. The damaging effects of HIV/AIDS on the demographics of Cameroon is now recognized by many but little efforts have been made to quantify these effects.This paper seeks to measure these impacts using the 2010 population figures of Cameroon estimated from the 2005 population count and information on HIV/AIDS derived from Demographic and Health Surveys
Key words: HIV/AIDS, demographic impacts, life expectancy, population size, population structure

While seemingly straightforward, many common indicators of educational participation, such as enrolment ratios, are subject to distortions that are transparent from within a demographic framework, but generally ignored in the field of educational development. We propose to present on the full range of effects mentioned above at the conference, but as an example, here we elaborate in greater detail on the issue of the age composition effect.
The value of aggregate education indicators such as enrolment rates is influenced by the age structure of the population through a pure composition effect. This phenomenon is not generally acknowledged in educational statistics, much less accounted for. The scant treatment the question of age distribution has received in this context has been limited to examining it as a source of measurement error when comparing administrative and survey data sources. By using an age-standardization technique, we show how this very common demographic tool can straightforwardly be applied to educational metrics and how doing so alters the results. We conclude that the effect on net participation rates is moderate in general, but with respect to gross rates, parity indices and their changes over time, age standardization appreciably influences conclusions about educational system performance.

According to the FAO, since 1990-92 the prevalence of world hunger in developing countries has declined from 23.2% (980 million people) to 14.9% (852 million people) in 2010-12. Most of this decline occurred prior to 2006 and the economic crisis and increased food prices have slowed declines since. Future progress is threatened by a recent surge in food prices driven by weather extremes including a weak monsoon in India, and a crop-withering drought and heat wave in the U.S. Corn Belt. And a confluence of long-term population and environmental trends is also undermining world food availability. These trends include increased diversion of grains for biofuels, and for livestock and poultry feed, continuing poverty, climate change leading to increasingly unstable weather, shrinking availability of water, the declining productive capacity of croplands and fisheries, and rapid population growth particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Latin America and Asia have made substantial progress in reaching MDG 1.C, whereas progress has been slow in the Near East and Africa. Both rapid population growth and environmental degredation threaten future progress toward elimination of hunger. Major investment in strengthening both agriculture and family planning is needed.