This column on population and development is here to educate people on contemporary population and development issues and  to also highlight the linkages between population growth and socio-economic development of any nation.

In this edition, we wish  to bring you the historical background information on the emergence of population issues in our  national and international development agenda. It is important to note that there were five international conferences on population in the 20th century which proved devidend in the efforts to create comprehensive knowledge and awareness on the issue. In 1954, population experts met in Rome to exchange their work.

They discussed the consequences of population growth and issued a mild warning that population change was imminent. No formal resolution or recommendations were made. However, in 1965, population experts convened in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to discuss fertility as a policy issues for development planning. Unprecedented world population growth had spurred closer investigation of the demographic aspects of development. Yet the advancement of scientific knowledge, rather than the development of policy, remained the goal.

In 1974, the first United Nation intergovernmental conference on population was held in Bucharest, Romania. Representatives from 136 nations met and, for the first time, acknowledged the scope and complexity of the world's population issues. Here, the focus shifted from exchanging knowledge to developing policy.  Population began to be widely perceived as a major international challenge. At the same time, economic progress was slow and poverty rampant in the developing world. Industrialized countries advocated programs to control population growth.

Developing counties countered, "Development is the best contraceptive resisted interference from industrialized countries". Despite the controversy, the delegates drew up the first international document on population policies and programs. They approved a World Population Plan of Action stating that all couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education, and means to do so.

In 1984, 149 nations participated in the international Conference on Population, held in Mexico City. Based on research results, the conference revised and extended the 1974 plan. Representatives from over 180 countries and 1, 200 nongovernmental agencies convened in Cairo, Egypt, for the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. The consensus was that no single solution would slow population growth.

The broader policies to be pursued include: responsible economic development; the education and empowerment of women; and high-quality health care, including family planning services. Individual health and well being and meeting family needs were recognized as crucial to meeting development goals. Delegates adopted a 20-year programme of action that provides a broad population policy framework for the 21st century.

Since the 1974 Bucharest conference, many developing countries have made efforts to improve their economy, provide for the health of their citizens, and increase their support for family planning services. As a result of these and other efforts, TFRs have fallen significantly among developing contries. TFRs in developing countries as a whole (excluding China), have come down from around 6 children per woman in the 1960s to 3.8 in 1998.

Birth rates in the developing world (again excluding China) fell 31 percent (from 42 births per 1,000 populations in the late 1960s to 29 in the late 1990s). However, death rates fell 41 percent during the same period (from 17 to 10). Therefore, the rate of natural increase for these countries declined less dramatically, by 24 percent (from 2.5 percent to 1.9 percent countries has come down significantly over the past 25 years, while the growth rate has), than did birth rates for the period. In short, the birth rate in developing has fallen at a slower rate, and results in a rise in the median age of the population.

The Gambia on population
However, the government of The Gambia first recognised and expressed the need to address population and development issues in a 1979 cabinet paper entitled, "Framework for the development of a population policy". This led to the formulation of the first Naional Population Policy in 1992, which was revised in 1996 and in August 2006. Alhough The Gambia's rate of population increase has declined from 4.2% per annum in 2003, the growth in population size continues to act as a serious impediment to the country's drive towards sustained economic growth within the context of sustaiable development and poverty eradication.

Factors associated with high population growth in The Gambia are complex and diverse. After the formulation of the first policy, new concerns and issues have now emerged. These include the Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), ageing, food security, poverty alleviation, environmental degradation, adolescent reproductive health, children, the youth, persons with disability, gender, population and the law, and migration.

The population and human developmment situation in The Gambia shows that major population issues are to be dealth with as part of the numerous development programmes and strategies. The policy aims at addressing current population trends and dynamics in relation to sustainable socio-economic and environmental development. It is also envisaged that it will bring out changes in population trends, addressing shortcomings in post policies, and filling in gaps emerging from new issues in national developpment strategies.

The policy therfore articulates the direction, scope and operational modalities for the effective implementation of population and development activities. A number of interventions were initiated since 1985 to address the imbalances in the economy partly due to demographic pressue, specifically the population growth rate.  

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that unless further steps ar taken to address the poulation growth, development efforts will be frustrated.
Concerns about population issues in The Gambia are not limited only to the population growth rate and size. Of equal concern to planers and policy makers are the age structure and spatial distribution of the population. With respect to the age structure, The Gambia's population can be described as young, with roughly 42 percent under the age of 15 years.

This youthful age structure means a high dependency burden on the economy. This could adversely affect savings and capital formation, which are crucial for sustained economic growth. The Gambia made significant progress over the past three decades at improving the health, nutrition and sanitary conditions of the population, which resulted to more people survivig into adulthood. Thus, the increasing number of elderly in the society poses another important emerging demographic variable to be taken into consideration. In 1993, 3 percent of the total population were 65 years old and over. This figure increased to 4 percent in 2003 (1993 and 2003 census reports).

Nonetheless, this continuing trend in longevity has a lot of social and economic implications for policy planning in the coutry. The aged in all societies have special needs, a responsibility which the individual family and the larger society have to shoulder, especially in view of the changing role of the family and the weakening of the extended family system which supported the age in traditional societies.