RECENT reports have noted that global population growth rate has surpassed government efforts to reduce it, and asked what people everywhere could do to make a difference.
This was stressed the other day by Forum for Family Planning and Development president Benjamin de Leon who said that people should learn how they could contribute to the proper moderation of population growth.
According to the just-concluded report of the United Nations Population Fund, by next year, more than half of the world's population, 3.3 billion people, will live in towns and cities, and the number is expected to swell to almost five billion by 2030.
The change is expected to be particularly dramatic in Africa and Asia where between 2000 and 2003 the accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation, says the report headlined, "State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth."
The report says that this surge of urban population, fueled more by high birth rates, than the migration of people from the countryside is unstoppable.
Cities are predicted to edge out rural areas in more than sheer number of people. Poverty is increasing more rapidly in urban areas, and governments need to plan for where the poor will live rather than leaving them to settle illegally in shanties without sewerage and other services.
A billion people worldwide live in slums, some 90 percent of them in developing countries.
Rather than just let slums spring up, governments need to anticipate the expanding ranks of the urban poor and provide them with secure housing, water, sanitation and power, among other services, the report says.
With decent housing and basic services, the poor can take advantage of the opportunities offered by urban life that is absent in rural areas.
Now, the immediate question is, What is the status of the urban population explosion in the Philippines?
An Asian Development Bank study describes Metro Manila as a mega city of 17 cities and towns with a population of over 12 million. It is growing at 3.3 percent per year, greater than the national average of 2.36 percent. Over 20 percent of the population live either below or near the poverty line, and 35 percent reside in slum settlements.
Expectedly, the settlements' growth and demand for services have overwhelmed the capacity of government and non-government organizations.
Major slum upgrading efforts were last undertaken in the 1970s, but attempts to resettle the poor to remote areas have generally failed, the ADB report notes.
Amid increasing urban density, there is growing environmental problem, backlog in low-income housing, and worsening traffic congestion. Under local government code, Metro Manila LGUs are tasked with their own planning and development but lack up-to-date and accurate data crucial to urban planning, the ADB observes.
It may be said that the concept of urbanization and the problems it entails was a consequence of population growth. In fact, the United Nations Population Fund (originally called United Nations Fund for Population Activities), began thinking about it in the course of implementing its population program, thanks to the vision and sagacity of Rafael M. Salas, the builder and first Executive Director of the UNFPA.
From a one-room office in Manhattan in 1969, Salas transformed the UNFPA into the biggest international backer and financier for population activities serving some 163 countries worldwide.
Salas recognized that rapid urbanization was occurring in all developing countries, a major aspect of the world's population crisis. He realized that the first step to solve the crisis was to meet the urban leaders themselves.
The first of the major international conferences of urban leaders was held in Rome in 1980. Mayors and heads of some of the world's 60 largest cities came together to identify problems and seek solutions.
That was followed by meetings in Barcelona in 1986, Kobe in 1987, and in Mexico City the same year.
People around the world who knew Rafael Salas credit him for the vision of empowering the urban poor to take advantage of the opportunities offered by city life.
Still, it is a vision that had to be realized in most of the globe, especially in developing countries.
To be sure, it is far from being achieved in Metro Manila which is undergoing an urban population explosion that swells the ranks of poor people desperately in need of help in housing, health, education, and modern family planning services.
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