POVERTY & DEVELOPMENT

Despite enormous gains in the wellbeing and economic circumstances of hundreds of millions of people,
10% of the world's population still live on less than $2 a day. High population growth traps individuals,
communities and even entire countries in poverty. Achieving sustainable population levels, locally and
globally, helps people achieve the dignity and standard of living we all deserve.

“ We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction
unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”

– Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UN Under-Secretary-General 2000-2010

Boys fetching water

POVERTY

While billions enjoy an affluent style, More than a tenth of the world’s population live in extreme
poverty today. Those people are almost always at greatest risk from environmental damage, climate
change and competition for resources. The effects of unsustainable population hit the poorest first, and
hardest.

Kids in slum

FAMILY SIZE AND POVERTY

The world's poorest countries tend to have the largest family sizes and fertility rates. When people have
no economic security and cannot rely on their government and a socal safety net, they often have
children to ensure they will be looked after when they are older. Where child mortality is high, there is
an even greater impetus to have more children. Those circumstances can lead in turn to a culture which
values high family size.

This understandable human impulse can contribute to a vicious cycle. Poor families with large numbers
of dependent children may perceive the need to take children out of education early, or marry off their
daughers young. They will also often live in deprived communities where access to modern family
planning is limited. All these factors combine to keep family sizes high, perpetuating the cycle.

"My statement that ‘development is the best contraceptive’ became widely known and oft quoted. 20
years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that ‘contraception is the best
development’.”

– Karan Singh, Indian politician

What applies to families, applies also to nations. In poorer countries, providing jobs, infrastructure,
health services and education to a constantly growing population can be an impossible task. In the worst
cases, even food can be impossible to supply. In countries with very high population growth, huge
numbers of dependent children in comparison to economically productive adults create a further
burden. In sub-Saharan Africa, the median age of the entire population is just 19 years old. In Niger, the
country with the world's highest fertility rate, the median age is just 15.3 years.

“The high population is exerting a lot of pressure on our economy. As a country we have made
tremendous gains over the years but the impact is not reflected on our economy because the gains have
been dissipated by population growth”

– Goodall Gondwe, minister of Finance, Malawi, 2017

In contrast, countries which have been successful in bringing down their fertility rates, have moved out
of poverty more quickly.

Nigerian school

Every year of school attendance cuts the Nigerian birth rate by a tenth.

LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION

While people living in poverty make a minuscule impact on global environmental problems such as
climate change, they can have a devastating impact on their local environment. Soils may be eroded in
an attempt to increase crop yields, fish stocks decimated to provide food and local forests razed for
timber and firewood. These actions, along with increasing conflict between humans and wildlife and
hunting of animals for food can have a huge impact on biodiversity.

Environmental damage can have wider impacts. For instance, in places where there is no water supply
and no refuse collection, people are obliged to use and discard plastic packaging or bottles, sometimes in
waterways, contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans. The perception that poverty equates to a low
environmental footprint does not hold true in many circumstances.

SOLUTIONS

The recipe for ending population growth is positive and simple:

Lift people out of poverty

Provide universal access to modern family planning

Empower women

Education

Encourage and incentivise smaller families

There are direct relationships between economic development, access to education and reductions in
fertility rates. It is essential that we do all we can to end global poverty and secure universal, high quality
education for all children and young people. Those cannot be effective, however, without high quality,
modern family planning - and the desire to use it. More than 200m women have an unmet need for
modern contraception - meaning that they don't want to get pregnant but are not using contraception.
This can be becaue they do not have access to it, because their circumstances prevent them from using it
or because, as is often the case, they have concerns about side-effects or how to use it effectively.
Beyond that, in some places there is still a cultural preference for larger families.

If all of these methods are used in combination, they are most effective, and have secured dramatic
reductions in fertility rates in many countries.

Anna and family, GuatemalaAfrican kids in school

POPULATION AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT IN KENYA

Wendo Aszed, Founder of our Empower to Plan programme partner Dandelion Africa, explains the
challenge of rapid population growth in Kenya and how enabling women to access modern
contraception has changed lives for the better.

FAMILY PLANNING IN RURAL AFRICA

Population Matters supports the work of CHASE Africa through our Empower to Plan crowdfunding
platform

DEFEND FAMILY PLANNING AID

Foreign aid, fair trade and global justice are all vital tools in helping people escape poverty and bringing
population growth to an end. Obstacles to the use of modern family planning must be overcome,
whether those are logistical, ideological or personal. The empowerment of women and girls is essential.

Right now, family planning programmes in many of the world's poorest countries are losing funding
because of changes in US foreign aid policy. Women and children are suffering the effects right now, and
their communities will struggle to escape poverty.

Join the campaign to defend family planning.