The Religious Consultation
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Xinhua General News Service, July 19, 2005 World Population
Growth Slows DATELINE: PARIS -- World population growth is slowing due to impressive drops in fertility rates in Asia and Latin America, but Africa remains the exception, according to local reports on Tuesday. Jean Pierre Guengant of the French Institute for Research and Development said Tuesday that between 1960 to 1965 and 2000 to 2005, fertility rates declined in Latin America from six children for one woman to 2.9, and in Asia from 5.6 to 2.2 children one mother. But in Africa, the rate fell only from 6.9 to 5.0, said the French expert on the second day of the 25th International Population Congress that will last to July 23 in the French central city of Tours. "In Asia, a strong commitment to family planning programmes is the main reason behind the success of many countries to achieve high levels of contraception," he said. However in Africa, population rates are fast on the rise, with populations expected to triple by 2050 in a number of countries, including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda. Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world with eight children born for each woman followed by Mali at 7.1, the Democratic Republic of Congo at 6.7 and Burkina Faso at 6.2. The world's population of 6.5 billion people is expected to reach 9.1 billion in the next fifty years, but its annual rate of growth has slowed from a two percent annual increase in 1960 to 1. 2 percent today. << Xinhua General News Service -- 7/19/05
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