By IANS,
Islamabad : Pakistan is entering a period of severe water and power shortages and a demographic that has a youth bulge which is fast becoming a threat rather than an opportunity, said a daily on World Population Day.
An editorial in the News International Monday said: “There are a lot of us, 187 million by the most recent estimate.”
“The average age is 21.6 years which makes us an extremely young population by global standards…We give birth to 24.81 children for every 1,000 of the population every year and, thanks to better healthcare (yes, really) and diet (also yes, really) 6.92 of us per 1,000 die every year.”
It said that Pakistanis were highly susceptible to a range of diseases.
On literacy, the editorial said about 63 percent of men and about 36 percent of women have basic literacy “but it is very basic indeed, and as of 2008 we spent 2.9 percent of the GDP on education – which more or less guarantees that we will remain at the back of the queue developmentally for a long time to come”.
It noted that the country’s population was bigger than that of Bangladesh and smaller than that of Brazil.
Sounding a note of caution, it said: “…If the ship goes down, we go with it.”
“The part of the planet to which we are steward – Pakistan – is entering a period of severe water and power shortages which could present existential threats and a demographic that has a youth bulge which is fast becoming a threat rather than an opportunity.”
“For us, World Population Day is a note of caution – but notes of caution we rarely hear, or heed if we do.”