Calls for greater focus on women’s rights and access to health, better health systems to save the lives of those under 5 years, and fears over growing populations in African countries marked the week. As the G20 meets, many call for a stronger resolve for funding and focus on “development” efforts in the face of financial crises, while others call for cuts to foreign aid.

Bill Gates says mobile phones will save lives, help overpopulation

In his keynote address at the mHealth Summit, Bill Gates noted that, “The key thing, the most important fact that people should know and make sure other people know: As you save children under 5, that is the thing that reduces population growth. That sounds paradoxal. The fact is that within a decade of improving health outcomes, parents decide to have less children.” Gates hopes that there will one day be a international registry of births facilitated by the ubiquity of mobile phones. Along with recording births with mobile phones, Gates sees the potential for a vaccine database to ensure that all newborns are vaccinated thus increasing their chances to live past age 5.

What 7 Billion means for Africa

Issue Analyst, Brittany Griffin, answers the question of her post with a critique of Nicholas Kristof’s call for more access to contraceptives in African countries. She makes an effort to ask why some women in Africa have as many as 5-6 children, highlighting economic reasons as well as the impact of diseases. She nots that if we are to address population issues, then we need to address overall inequalities around the world.

Gauteng Records show Decline of Infant and Maternal Mortality

The Gauteng Province of South Africa reported that interventions implemented by the Department of Health and Social Development has yielded positive results with declining mortality rates for both mothers and infants. ”The reduction in maternal deaths indicates that the department is making encouraging progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals target of 100 deaths per 100 000 live births,” said the department’s MEC Ntombi Mekgwe.

Seven billion people, up from six billion in just 12 years. An absolutely astounding figure. The announcement of the birth of the seven billionth person on Earth was met this week with cautious celebration, however, given the stunning speed at which we arrived at this milestone and governments around the world were faced with a problem we can’t afford to ignore much longer. It’s an undeniable fact that the world cannot accommodate much more than than this for much longer at our present rate of resource consumption and environmental degradation. So the question becomes how do we slow down Mother Earth’s astounding population growth rate?

Well an obvious starting point is to look at areas of the world with the highest population growth rates and find solutions to reduce said rates, which is exactly what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has done in his editorial this morning. Kristof cites high birth rates in countries such as Chad, the DRC, the Republic of the Congo, and Somalia as contributing substantially to the world’s high population growth rate and proposes more funding globally for contraceptives as the beginning of a solution. Although I absolutely agree with him that contraceptives should be freely available to women globally, I am hesitant to be optimistic on this solution’s potential.

For one, funding for this type of initiative would depend heavily on more developed, Western countries, like the United States. While these countries absolutely have the resources to finance such a ground-breaking initiative, it is unlikely to obtain enough support given the global economic problems they currently face, as well as the religious opposition to birth control and family planning in the United States. Secondly, before we begin to reduce population growth rates in less developed countries, especially in Africa, it is of critical importance that we examine why women are having upwards of five and six children in some areas. More often than not the children are needed for family support, especially in areas with economies heavily dependent on agriculture, or where diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria have destroyed families and communities.

Addressing issues of poverty, disease, and education in conjunction with providing free contraception to women in poorer countries is a much more holistic solution to a globally relevant problem. Governments all over the world should take the 7 billion mark as an opportunity to push policies that manage and reduce the very problems that got us here. That way we as a global society learn something from this unprecedented milestone; otherwise, it just means perpetuated inequality, poverty, and environmental degradation for Africa and the world.