52

Emporium Current Essays

The World Population Day >vas first commemorated on llth July, 1987, the day on which
the world population crossed five billion mark. Since then the United Nations have
designated this day as "The World Population Day". The objective of this
commemoration is to review and assess the population growth and primary health care as
focused in the International Conference on Population (ICDP) held in Cairo, 3-15
September, J994. Also the country must resolve and follow a definite course of action to
meet the challenges of attaining human and sustainable social and economical
development. The current (1995-96) rate of population growth in Pakistan is 2.8 per cent
per annum which is among the highest in the world.

The country according to the first census undertaken in

1951 had a population of 33.8 million and its current figures (as of
30 June, 1996) is estimated at 133 millions. This almost fourfold increase has occurred in
a period of 45 years. This has been one of the major factor in retarding the development,
especially in heath, education and development of human resources. For example in the
field of education alone the number of illiterates of age ten years and more population has
grown from 22 millions according to the 1961 census to the estimated figure of 58
million as of 1996. While we may be satisfied that the rate of literacy has risen from 18
per cent in
1961 to 38 per cent in 1995-96, we must be alarmed with the increase in the absolute
number of illiterates, as with the passage of time, the task of development is becoming
more and more difficult. This has happened in spite of the Population Welfare programme
which was introduced in the public sector as a part of the Second Five Year Plan as far
backs as 1960-65 and has not been very effective and lack of proper planning in the
education sector in which the target has been to achieve universal primary education and
literacy but t was never achieved.

During 1995-96 alone 3.6 million persons have been added to the population which is
equivalent to the size of Lebanon. Under the circumstances, can we afford to add
population of the si/e of Lebanon every year? One of the major problem^of the
Population

Emporium Current Essays

53

VVelfarc Programme has been that until the programme of the Seventh Five Year
Programme 1988-93. the coverage of the population was 54 per cent in the urban area
and only 20 per cent in the rural area. Another factor has been the low literacy level in the
country. According to the 1992-93 Economics Survey only 35 per cent of the total, 47 per
cent of males and 22 per cent of females were literate. The 'literacy rate in rural areas was
only 27 per cent and in urban areas it was 56 per cent. There has been considerable
expansion in the health services but most of the facilities were in the urban areas.

The 1995-96 Economic Survey shows some improvement in the literacy level. It shows
an estimate of literacy rate of 38 per cent of the total, 50 per cent of males and 25 per cent
of females. These rates for urban area in 1995-96 were 58 per cent and for rural area it
was 28 per cent. Evidently, there are inequalities between females and males and also
between rural and urban areas, although in Islam education is mandatory for every male
and female. The survey also shows that greater emphasis is being placed on the
promotion of primary health care services^ nutrition and improvement in the rural health
care seniccs to reduce the inequality.

In the Eight Five Year Plan 1993-98 apart from improvements 'in education and health,
efforts are being made to increase the coverage of the Population by strengthening the
existing Population Welfare Programme in the Ministry of Population Welfare and the
introduction of the new programme "Prime Minister's Programme for Family Planning
and Primary Health Care" in the Ministry of Health. These two programmes are expected
to cover 100 per cent population of urban areas and most population (85 per cent) of rural
areas.

The special features of these programmes include the creation of the cadre of Village
Based Family Planning Workers (VBFPWs) in the Population Welfare Programme and
Lady Health Workers (LHWs) in the "Prime Minister's Programme" to provide services at
the door steps of the people. The VBFPWs scheme was experimented in the Seventh Five
Year Plan and was found encouraging.

Altogether 12,000 VBFPWs are to be engaged in the . Population Welfare Programme

and 100,000 Lady Health Workers in the Prime Minister's Programme by the end of
Eighth Five Year Plan in 1998, so far fifty per cent of VBFPWs and one third of 54

Emporium Current Essays

Besides, Social Action Programmes I (1993-96) AND II (1996-2000) have been launched
to reduce imbalance between economic growth and social development and to assist the
Government in lowering the rate of population growth to 2.5 per cent- per annum, if not
lees by the year 2000. Besides, the role of Non-government Organisation (NGOs) is
important, and it is augmenting the services being provided by the Government by
offering family planning* health and social development services.

The focus in Islam is on the quality of population rather than quantity and breast feeding
of babies at least for 24 months. These measures are aimed at developing education and
skill through human resource development and spacing of children for improving health
of mothers and children. This is the path perhaps other Islamic countries are following.

It is possible that if above programmes are implemented sincerely and. are combined with
research and development, Pakistan would have one of the largest programmes among
the developing countries by 1998 and it would not only be able to achieve its targets, it
would be well on the way to catch up with other Islamic and developing countries in
reducing it* population growth rate, improving primary health care sen ices, developing
its human resources and alleviating its poverty. This is the commitment which we all
should make on the World Population Day.

According to the medium variant of projection, the current population of 133 million is
expected to grow to 229 million by 2020. The national efforts should be strengthened to
avert this situation and let us strive at least for the low variant, according to which the
population of 200 million by 2020 could be aimed at: This would facilitate the
achievement of sustainable development. *~

Finally, I wish to re-emphasise that the performance of the above programmes must be
continuously evaluated and monitored under the latest techniques of management, for
which the creation of more than one research institute and centres, staffed with high level
professionals arc required to undertake objective studies to contribute to the improvement
and sustainability of the efficiency and the successful implementation of the
programmes.LHWs have been engaged. These cadres have been created to take family
planning and primary health care services to the door steps of the people especially in the
rural settings.