Demographics and Human Resources

Global Challenges excerpt from the 2010 State of the Future report

Population and Resources

How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? [Challenge 3]

Health

How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune microorganisms be reduced?[Challenge 8]

Status of Women

How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition? [Challenge 11]


Population and Resources

How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? [Challenge 3]

 -- Brief Overview --

Today's 6.9 billion population is expected to grow to 9.1 billion by 2050 and could reach 11 billion if fertility rates do not continue to fall. If the rates do continue to fall, then world population could actually shrink by 2100, creating an elderly world difficult to support. Nearly all the population increases will be in urban areas in developing countries. Over 20 countries have falling populations, which could increase to 44 countries by 2050, with the vast majority of them in Europe. Scientific and medical breakthroughs over the next 50 years will give people longer and more productive lives than most would believe possible today. Globally, life expectancy at birth is 68 years, and some forecast that it could increase by one year each year by 2030. The global population profile is changing from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility.

About 20% of the world will be over 60 by 2050, and 20% of the older population will be aged 80 or more. Some 20% of Europeans are 60 or older compared with 10% in Asia and Latin America and 5% in Africa. To reduce the economic burden on younger generations and to keep up living standards, people will work longer and create many forms of tele-work, part-time work, and job rotation. The economic slowdown and unemployment, combined with elevated food and fuel prices, pushed some 100 million people into chronic hunger. Over 1 billion people were undernourished in 2009. In 2010, WFP plans to bring food assistance to more than 90 million people in 73 countries, yet in some of these countries, agricultural lands are being bought by foreign investors. Some 2.5 million hectares (about 20% of all EU farmland) in developing countries have been subject to transactions or talks involving foreigners since 2004, in deals estimated to be worth $20–30 billion. Government-backed foreign investors have bought farmlands around the world totaling about half the size of Europe. Meanwhile, 25% of all fish stocks are overharvested; the entire value of fish caught is $85 billion, but $27 billion spent on government subsidies, mostly in rich countries, lead to overexploitation.

To keep up with population and economic growth, food production should increase by 70% and meat production by over 200 million metric tons to reach 470 million metric tons by 2050, which increases demands on water and land, further increasing prices and competition between rural and urban requirements. An additional $83 billion per year will be needed to keep up with these new demands. Cutting the number of hungry people in half by 2015 would generate global annual incremental benefits of $120 billion by 2015. Some 30–40% of food production from farm to mouth is lost in many countries.

Climate change and monocultures undermine biodiversity, which is critical for agricultural viability. Developing countries could experience a decline of 9–21% in overall potential agricultural productivity by 2050 as a result of global warming. An increasingly difficult fungus to stop (Ug99) could wipe out more than 80% of the world's wheat crops unless new wheat varieties resistant to it are created. Conventional breeding techniques can take 9–12 years; hence, a food crisis may be inevitable.

New agricultural approaches will be needed, such as meat production without growing animals, better rain-fed agriculture and irrigation management, genetic engineering for higher-yielding and drought-tolerant crops, precision agriculture and aquaculture, and saltwater agriculture on coastlines to produce food for human and animals, biofuels, and pulp for the paper industry as well as to absorb CO2, reduce the drain on freshwater agriculture and land, and increase employment. An animal rights group has offered $1 million to the first producers of commercially viable in-vitro chicken by mid-2012.

Urban population is projected to jump from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion in 2050. During the same period, the 1 billion people living in slums today could double. Without sufficient nutrition, shelter, water, and sanitation produced by more intelligent human-nature symbioses, increased migrations, conflicts, and disease seem inevitable. ICT continues to improve the match between needs and resources worldwide in real time, and nanotech will help reduce material use per unit of output while increasing quality.

Challenge 3 will be addressed seriously when the annual growth in world population drops to fewer than 30 million, the number of hungry people decreases by half, the infant mortality rate decreases by two-thirds between 2000 and 2015, and new approaches to aging become economically viable.

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Health

How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune microorganisms be reduced? [Challenge 8]

 -- Brief Overview --

Even though population is increasing, 30% fewer children under five died in 2008 than in 1990 and total mortality from infectious disease fell from 25% in 1998 to 16% in 2008. Vaccines supplied by UNICEF reach 55% of the world's children. Partnerships between the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and the Gates Foundation, WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank have greatly improved global health cooperation over the past 10 years. Because the world is aging and increasingly sedentary, cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of death in the developing as well as the industrial world; however, infectious diseases are the second largest killer and cause about 67% of all preventable deaths of children under five (pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles). Urbanization, travel, trade, increased encroachment on animal territory, and concentrated livestock production move infectious organisms to more people in less time than ever before and could trigger new pandemics.

The H1N1 virus (swine flu) infected millions of humans in all 214 countries and territories within a year, killing 18,000, and will be active another year. Although spreading very fast, the mortality was relatively low, causing WHO to review its decision to declare it a pandemic. H5N1 (avian flu) killed half of the people infected, spread very slowly, has mutated three times in the last 15 years, and could mutate again, increasing its impact. Over the past 40 years, 39 new infectious diseases have been discovered, 20 diseases are now drug-resistant, and old diseases have reappeared, such as cholera, yellow fever, plague, dengue fever, meningitis, hemorrhagic fever, and diphtheria. In the last five years, more than 1,100 epidemics have been verified. About 75% of emerging pathogens are zoonotic (they jump species).

Some 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS; 2.7 million were newly infected and 2 million died during 2009. The virus is unstable and mutates enough that $800 million of research has not produced a successful vaccine. So far, it cannot be cured, only stabilized, and it has become resistant to multiple drugs. While it appears that new cases peaked in the late 1990s and mortality peaked in 2004, predictions of 2.3 million new cases per year are likely to be true into the 2030s unless prevention is more successful. Sharing needles is thought to be three times more likely than sexual intercourse to transmit HIV; male circumcision may reduce infection by 50%; and since HIV crosses the placenta and breast milk to children, preventive treatments are important.

While small numbers of people with Ebola and West Nile viruses have receive media attention, the bigger health impacts are from schistosomiasis (200 million cases), dengue fever (50 million new cases a year), measles (30 million cases a year), onchocerciasis (18 million cases in Africa), typhoid and leishmaniasis (approximately 12 million each globally), rotavirus (600,000 child deaths per year), and shigella childhood diarrhea (600,000 deaths per year). About half of the world's population is at risk of several endemic diseases. Climate change is altering insect and disease patterns. Vector reproduction, parasite development cycle, and bite frequency generally rise with temperature; therefore, malaria, tick-borne encephalitis, and dengue fever are expected to become increasingly widespread. Hepatitis B infects up to 2 billion people. There is more TB in the world now than ever before (2 million deaths, 9 million new infections in 2009), yet in the last 15 years 43 million TB cases have been treated and 36 million have been cured. There were 863 000 malaria deaths in 2009 (80% occurred in children younger than 5 in sub-Saharan Africa), yet 38 countries (9 in Africa) documented reductions of more than 50% in the number of malaria cases between 2000 and 2008. Enhanced optimism and a marked increase in funding for malaria control have prompted calls for malaria eradication.

To counter bioterrorism, R&D has increased for improved bio-sensors and general vaccines able to boost the immune system to contain any deadly infection. Such vaccines could be placed around the world like fire extinguishers. Some small viruses have been found to attack large viruses, offering the possibility of a new route to disease cures. Other problems may come from synthetic biology laboratories of the future. In the meantime, the global shortage of 4.3 million health workers is growing. People are living longer and health care costs are increasing, making tele-medicine and self-diagnosis via biochip sensors and online expert systems increasingly necessary.

At the moment, the best ways to address infectious diseases remain early detection, accurate reporting, prompt isolation, transparency of information, increased investment in clean drinking water, sanitation, and handwashing. Also are WHO's eHealth systems, International Health Regulations to address SARS-like threats, immunization programs, and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network as global responses to this challenge. Scientists are working to develop a genetically modified mosquito that would not carry the malaria parasite. Better trade security will be necessary to prevent increased food- or animal-borne disease. Viral incidence in animals is being mapped in Africa, China, and South Asia to divert epidemics before they reach humans. Future uses of genetic data, software, and nanotechnology will help detect and treat disease at the genetic or molecular level.

If Asian poultry farmers received incentives to replace their live-market businesses—the source of some viruses—with frozen-products markets, the annual loss of life and economic impacts could be reduced. WHO's eHealth systems, International Health Regulations to address SARS-like threats, immunization programs, and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network are global responses to this challenge. Scientists are working to develop a genetically modified mosquito that would not carry the malaria parasite. Better trade security will be necessary to prevent increased food- or animal-borne disease. Viral incidence in animals is being mapped in Africa, China, and South Asia to divert epidemics before they reach humans. Future uses of genetic data, software, and nanotechnology will help detect and treat disease at the genetic or molecular level.

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Status of Women

How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition? [Challenge 11]

 -- Brief Overview --

Countries with smaller gender gaps have better development opportunities, superior education, healthier children, and greater social stability. Increased participation of women in political and economic decisionmaking around the world has been slow but steady. The ratio of women in national parliaments has increased from 13.8% in 2000 to 18.9% in 2010, while the current ratio of women in ministerial positions is 29% in health, 26% in culture, 25% in education, and 4% in defense, while 5% are heads of government. Some 100 countries have mandatory or voluntary gender quotas for their legislatures.

The Gender Equity Index 2009 computed by Social Watch shows that in most countries the gender gap is not closing and progress is largely dependent on the gender discrimination status in the country, and not on the region or economic development. The index decreased from 35% in 2008 to 34.5% in 2009, with setbacks in 51% of the countries that were already in the worse relative situation, while 77% of those in a comparatively better situation made progress.

Most progress was made in achieving universal primary education. Of the estimated 72 million primary-age children who are not in school, girls only slightly outnumber boys. However, only 53% of countries achieved gender parity in both primary and secondary education, with the gap for secondary schooling widening in some regions. Around 126 million children are still involved in hazardous work, and the economic crisis threatens the education status of a whole generation of children. Meanwhile, 50% of university students worldwide are women, and in many countries they outnumber men.

Women account for over 40% of the world's workforce but earn less than 25% of the wages. In developing countries, they represent over 60% of all unpaid family workers, typically with no job security and benefits. Environmental disasters, food and financial crises, armed conflicts, and forced displacement further increase vulnerabilities and generate new forms of disadvantages for women and children. However, women control over 70% of global consumer spending and by 2015 might generate 70% of the global household income growth.

Some religious and patriarchal structures continue to impede women's liberty and access to family planning in many cultures. Unsafe and illegal abortions cause some 5.3 million disabilities and 68,000 deaths each year. Of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths per year, 99% happen in developing countries, with the highest prevalence in Africa and Asia due to high fertility rates and weak health systems. At the current rate of improvement, the UN goal to reduce maternal mortality to 120 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015 will not be achieved.

About 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked around the world, out of which approximately 70% are women and girls and up to 50% are minors, the "largest slave trade in history." The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, has 137 parties and 117 signatories, but it has yet to be adopted and enforced by some key countries. Despite significant progress in setting international mechanisms to eradicate all forms of violence against women, about half of the countries have no legislation to stop gender-based discrimination, and crimes against women continue to be perpetrated withimpunity. Men attacking women is the largest war today, as measured by death and casualties per year. About one-third of women suffer gender-based violence during their lives, and one in five have been be a victim of rape or attempted rape, especially during armed conflicts.

Educating men and ending harmful gender stereotyping would help, but it's a slow process. Meanwhile, women are increasingly cutting through cultural hierarchies via the Internet and mobile platforms to get information, form groups, coordinate actions, and participate in networks. Mothers should use their educational role in the family to more assertively nurture mutual respect between men and women. Elementary and secondary school systems should consider teaching martial arts and other forms of self-defense in physical education classes for girls. Legal systems should guarantee gender parity and women's access to credit, land, technology, training, health care, and child care. Infringements on women's rights should be subject to prosecution and international sanctions.

Challenge 11 will be addressed seriously when there is gender parity in school enrollment, literacy, and access to capital, when discriminatory laws are gone, when discrimination and violence against women is prosecuted, and when there are essentially equal numbers of men and women in policymaking positions.

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