Population growth poses poverty challenge

As Malawians prepare to vote in the country’s second democratic presidential and parliamentary elections on Tuesday, analysts are pondering whether the winning party will be able to implement effective strategies to reduce the grinding poverty under which an overwhelming majority of the population lives. Malawi’s poor are not a homogenous group, but consist of a cross-section of the population, a UNICEF official told IRIN on Monday. The most vulnerable include smallholders with less than one hectare of land; estate workers; estate tenants; the urban poor; female-headed households and children. “The condition of poverty is characterised by the lack of productive means to fulfill basic needs such as food, water, shelter, education and health,” the official said, adding that the poor tend to have limited access to productive resources and basic services. Their principal coping mechanism is casual labour. A report compiled recently by the Malawi government and UN agencies on poverty argued that the population growth rate is the crucial issue. Malawi’s population as recorded in a 1987 census was estimated at 7.99 million, excluding the estimated one million Mozambican refugees. By mid-1992, the country’s population had increased to an estimated nine million. “A high birth rate persists, and the demographic pattern is towards a young and dependent population,” the report points out, adding: “Malawi’s single major natural resource, agricultural land, is under severe pressure from rapid population growth.” The country’s population, according to the UNICEF official, has more than doubled since independence in 1964 when there were only about four million people. “Excluding the refugee population, the intercensal growth rate was estimated at 3.3 percent per annum between 1977 and 1987,” the official said. She added that the total fertility rate was estimated at 7.6 births per woman. However, results of the 1992 Demographic and Health Survey indicate that the total fertility rate has declined to 6.7 births per woman as a result of improved access to health care services. But this is still considered high. “Unless urgent action is taken to reduce fertility and population growth, current demographic trends will exacerbate and reinforce poverty,” the official said. Malawi’s total population is projected to increase to 12 million by the year 2000. However, the AIDS epidemic is expected to slow population growth to 2.1 percent per annum by the year 2000 under the worst case scenario. “If the annual population growth remains at 3.3 percent, the population will double within the next 21 years,” the UNICEF official added.