Population and Development
By Limana Solaiman Mridha
It is a common saying among Bangladesdhi citizens that wherever I go, I am destined to bump into countrymen. We do not have to dig deeper to discover the reason behind it. According to the Trading Economics website, the huge population of Bangladesh accounts for about 2.18 percent of the total world population, which translates to every one person in 46 on our beloved planet is a resident of Bangladesh. With a staggering population of about 162 million, Bangladesh is the 8th most densely populated country in the world and the population density is such that there are approximately 1,124.7 people per square kilometre (as of July 2016). The total area of Bangladesh is 144, 000 km sq, according to the United Nations Statistics Division. And demographers predict that with the current rate of population growth, we will be facing a gargantuan population of 200 million by the year 2050.
The estimated population count of the country stood at 161,957,017 on January 1 this year. This figure follows the rate of increase of about 1.20 percent than the year before.
The previous year, as the number of deaths remained lower than the number of live births, the natural increase was positive and a decline in population was observed due to external migration of about 456, 104 people. Demographic experts estimate that the already huge number of people will have increased by 1,943,484 during the present year and the countrys population will reach 163,900,501 by the beginning of 2017. Also, the natural increase will remain positive since the number of births will likely surpass the number of deaths this year as well.
As the world observed World Population Day on July 11, the Weekend Independent sought the opinion of demographer AK M Nurun Nabi, Vice-Chancellor of Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur, about the current state of population in Bangladesh.
Our population control model has been highly successful in terms of curbing the rate of growth. We have people from Africa and other countries coming to Bangladesh to learn about our model and how they can implement it in their own countries. But there is still room for improvement. One of the problem is that womens reproductive health care needs cannot be met successfully. Demand of contraceptives is higher than what we can provide, and also, the dropout rate among contraceptive users is pretty high.
Other reasons for our huge population are elements of social factors that come into play. Although the legal age of marriage is 18 years, in reality, especially in rural areas, girls of about 15 years of age are married off as their parents are scared for their security. We can chalk out the reasons behind population growth to be early marriage, early child-bearing and frequent pregnancies. More emphasis should be put on education and schools should address family planning issues in depth, instead of avoiding teaching the chapters that educate about reproductive health.
We need to come up with policies and proper planning which will help to convert our demographic dividend into economic growth. We are not utilising this window of opportunity properly. We have a huge population and, therefore, we have the scope of creating skilled workers. We should provide more facilities for foreign language training, etc for our migrant workers who bring in huge amounts of remittances, thus, giving a positive boost to the countrys economy.
The Weekend magazine also spoke to Rubayat Khan, chief of research and innovation at mPower Social, to learn about his take on the countrys population in terms of sustainable development, and the challenges faced by the public health sector.
I actually think population density is a huge blessing in disguise for Bangladesh, in terms of sustainable development. But before I explain, I must clarify what I mean by sustainable development. Any development funded by philanthropy, as is currently the definition, is not sustainable in my opinion. As Bangladesh moves into a middle income country, donors are starting to pull out and deprioritise Bangladesh in favour of countries in Africa, for example. Under such circumstances, the only sustainable development projects will be those that are self-funded and/or profitable. Led by various social enterprises, development organisations, like Brac, are moving in the direction of full financial sustainability. And for such an approach, a high density of population is a big advantage for getting interventions to cost-effectively, and profitably, deliver services. We have already seen that with solar energy, finance (bKash), and we are trying to do something similar with healthcare.
The predominant challenge in public health is that the density of population and doctors are not in sync. Nearly 70 percent of the countrys population lives in rural areas, but over 90 percent of doctors are stationed in large towns and cities. And it has not been possible to convince doctors to live in villages. In the absence of doctors, various quack medicine providers and exploitative forces are taking advantage of peoples ignorance and lack of health awareness to serve themselves. Pharmaceuticals are pushing sophisticated drugs through untrained pharmacists, leading to antibiotic resistance. People are delaying care, leading to escalation and complication of problems, which in turn are unnecessarily burdening the secondary and tertiary facilities.
The solution to these problems is not just to train more doctors and move them to villages. It is to use technology to bridge the distance between rural and urban, it is to address problems early by creating quality primary care, it is to invest in health awareness and education and preventive care, it is to universalise health insurance coverage, it is to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, and so on. The government and the private sector must work hand in hand to solve these multifarious problems.
Photos: File
