Addis Abeba — Imagine Ethiopia being among the top 10 in the world for anything. In 2050 it will almost happen. Alas, Philippines will beat us by a very small margin. Forty years from now, Ethiopia will be the 11th most populous nation in the world with 149.5 million people. Just think of how much aid food we are going to get then. Don't worry; many of us will live to see that day.

If it were a competition to beat every country to the top, it would not be much of an improvement, for, today, Ethiopia is the 12th most populous country with 82.2 million people, according to information from Population Reference Bureau. Germany follows right behind with almost the same population (82 million). If it were an athletic race, Ethiopia would feel the hot, moist breath of Germany , as the richer country teased it saying, "I can feed my people and still help feed yours. What are you up to, anyway?" This is not really meant to make fun where it should not be made but rather an attempt to draw attention to the claims of Ethiopian leaders that they consider their people as an asset retaliating to those who tell them to draft stronger population policy. Of course, we have never had leaders who ever admit their failures. For, what they should have been bold enough to say was to come out to the front and say loud and clear, "Our family planning programme has failed." Today, according to the above source, only 14% of married Ethiopian women between the ages of 15 to 49 have access to modern methods of contraception.

Francois Farah, who has just ended his term as interim country director for UNFPA in Ethiopia and is moving to Romania , says that where people have had the resources, they have always chosen to reduce their family size and do everything to provide better life for their children. Speaking in reference to the achievements of the International Conference for population Development (ICPD), which just concluded its 15th annual event at the United Nations Conference Centre, Farah said that one of the shortcomings was the failure to narrow the gap between demand and supply for family planning methods.

Family planning has travelled a long way to reach where it is now; apparently it still has a long way to go, particularly in the developing countries. The use of contraceptives among 15 to 49 year old women in develop[ed countries is 55 to 58%. In least developed countries, the average is 22%. Sub-Saharan Africa's average is 17%, and of course, as usual, Ethiopia is even lower than the sub-Saharan Average. Talk about population asset.

Africa's population, which hit the one billion mark recently, is certainly a cause for concern, and a threat to development prospects, although some would look at it differently.

If Ethiopia's population had been half of what it is now, all things held constant, Ethiopia's GDP per capita would have been 666 dollars, taking Ethiopia nearly 20 places higher on the world ranking. The Economic Commission for Africa, the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank all agree with the Ethiopian government that the economy of the poorest country in the world is growing at a commendable pace. But some of that e progress is simply disappearing in the ocean of population growth, some of the rest is sacrificed by environmental and other forms of economic vulnerabilities; little remains for actual development. As Africans numbered one billion, Ethiopians accounted for 8% of that.

It took all of time until 1960 (literally thousands of years) for the world population to reach three billion, but it doubled in only 40 years. In 1994, when the world population was 5.93 billion, annual population growth was estimated to be 90 million. And the future had two scenarios, the best case scenario, where population control efforts paid off, and the worst case scenario where policies failed to affect population growth. So in 2050, when billions of people living today will still be alive, world population could be 7.918 billion to 11.5 billion, according to UN estimates mentioned by Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former executive secretary of the United Nations during the 1994 ICPD conference in Cairo. A more recent estimate, obtained from the Population Reference Bureau, indicates that the world population will could grow from 6.8 billion today move for the 2009 figure of 6.8 billion to nearly 8.1 billion in 2025 and 9.4 billion in 2050. Today Africa 's population is only 14.7% of the world; in 2050 it will be 21.3%, the main reason why pressure is mounting on developing and least developed countries to slow down their population growth.

Actually the 3 billion mark was the wake-up call for policy makers. the world which started leading the population issue to the forefront. Since then numerous surveys and studies have been done on population, several billions of dollars have been spent on family planning, and population has become an important part of the policies of many governments. And the ICPD, which took place first in 1994, marked a paradigm shift in addressing the population issue.

Mr Farah has described the paradigm shift from the paranoia of the pre-ICPD decades to the sensibility that followed, in an article entitled Changing population paradigms post ICPD: policy and programme implications.

"When the world community was laying the ground work for the ICPD in Cairo in 1994, it became clear then that the demographic, social, economic and political environment of the mid-1990s and the experience many population policies and FP programmes had gone through over the earlier two decades or so, particularly in the developing countries, were totally different from the panic -like neo-Malthusian environment which characterized the late 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, it became clear in the mid 1990s that population was no longer about figures and statistics but about people, and women in particular. Women, not as "reproducing" individuals whose excessive fertility warranted regulation for the purpose of meeting demographic targets, but as human beings in their own right beyond the demographic impact of their reproductive behaviour." Although the element of fear remains and continues to be of greater concern by the day, and although countries, particularly developing and least developed countries are encouraged to take stronger policy measures, people continue to be seen in light of development and not as a thing to be done away with.

As Boutros-Ghali said in a 1994 statements the focus was on the human being in his environment, as the possessor of rights, in his social development, and through the status and condition of women, that will bring us together next year in Beijing . The Cairo Consensus brought the focus to human beings and put itself in line with the Millennium Development Goals. With only five year remaining for the deadline set for the MDGs, work continues on population, reproductive health and gender issues as essential elements to improve the lives of the people of the world.

At least those countries who genuinely believe that their people are their assets will delve into sensible family planning programmes and manage their population. Those like us may remain under the curse of being managed by their population size, forever begging to feed their people, while they report of the millions of tonnes to be harvested on the television they control.