The media could play a vibrant role in sensitising lawmakers regarding the hazards of population explosion.
This was stated by speakers during a consultative meeting on ‘The Role of Media to Make Governance Elite Socially Responsive’ held on Sunday by the Contech Consortium under the Apna Pakistan campaign.
Speakers said that as a result of unchecked population growth, a large portion of the population had to live below the poverty line. They said that rapid and imbalanced population growth devoured economic growth and development, making positive intervention in the social sector ineffective. It also caused an insufficient delivery of public goods including health, education and social safety nets for the downtrodden segments of society, they added.
Key experts presented facts about various services, quality of life and state of governance that had a converse relationship with the rate of population growth in different societies.
Dr Naeem-ud-Din said, “Media has an instrumental role to play to make population growth an area of prime concern for decision makers.”
The growth of population is alarming in Pakistan. It is born out from the fact that the annual growth rate of population rose from 1.1% in 1931 to 1.7% in 1951 and to 2.05%in 2010. The population of 1951 has more than quadrupled in 2007. It stands at 17.35 crore ass in 2011. If the population welfare programme is not effectively implemented, the population of Pakistan is projected to increase to 216 million by the end of the year 2020.
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