What should poor countries be doing to reduce over-population?
It’s up to the individual countries to decide, since they’re the ones who have to deal with the environmental consequences. It’s difficult to imagine the people of a country accepting population control forced on them by outsiders. The example that comes to mind is China’s one-child policy, but there’s less coercive policies that could be used to discourage population growth, such as Singapore’s “Two is Enough” campaign, or even programs to educate girls (increased female literacy appears to reduce birth rates). See Amartya Sen’s article Population: Delusion and Reality for a forceful argument against coercive population control. For poor, overpopulated countries, improving agricultural productivity (in a sustainable way) is another key issue. Over the next century, the countries that seem most at risk for overpopulation are in Africa and South Asia, although population growth is slowing in most countries.
