PHA-Exch> Revised UN estimates put world population at over 9 billion by 2050

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at gmail.com>
crossposted from: "[health-vn discussion group]" health-vn at cairo.anu.edu.au


http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30159&Cr=family+planning&Cr1=

Revised UN estimates put world population at over 9 billion by 2050

Hania Zlotnik

11 March 2009 – The world’s population will hit 7 billion early in 2012 and
top 9 billion in 2050, with the majority of the increase taking place in
developing countries, according to revised United Nations estimates released
today.
“There have been no big changes for the recent estimates and we have not
changed the assumptions for the future,” Hania Zlotnik, Director of the
Population Division at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA),
told reporters in New York.

“We’re still projecting that by 2050 the population of the world will be
around 9.1 billion,” she said, as she presented the 2008 Revision of the
World Population Prospects.

The Revision also says that nine countries are expected to account for half
of the world’s projected increase from 2010 to 2050: India, Pakistan,
Nigeria, Ethiopia, United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Tanzania, China and Bangladesh.

Ms. Zlotnik noted that current projections are based on the assumption that
fertility is going to decline from the current global level of 2.5 children
per woman to 2.1 children per woman from now until 2050.

The population of the 49 least developed countries (LDCs) is still the
fastest growing in the world, at 2.3 per cent per year, according to a news
release issued by the Population Division.

While the population of developing countries as a whole is projected to rise
from 5.6 billion in 2009 to 7.9 billion in 2050, the population of more
developed regions is expected to change minimally, passing from 1.23 billion
to 1.28 billion.

The latter would have declined to 1.15 billion were it not for the projected
net migration from developing to developed countries, which is expected to
average 2.4 million persons annually from 2009 to 2050.

The UN adds that projected trends are contingent on fertility declines in
developing countries. Without further reductions of fertility, the world
population could increase by nearly twice as much as currently expected.

“It is going to be extremely important to continue funding and increasing
the funding that has gone down for family planning because, if not, our
projections on declining fertility are unlikely to be met,” Ms. Zlotnik
stated.

She added that the projected population trends also depend on achieving a
major increase in the proportion of AIDS patients who get anti-retroviral
therapy to treat the disease and on the success of efforts to control the
further spread of HIV.

Among the other findings, she noted that most developing countries are
unlikely to meet the goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds by
2015, one of eight globally agreed targets set out in the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).


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