In an opinion article in one of the local newspapers on August 21, the director-general of the National Council for Population and Development and the Kenya Representative to the UNFPA misleadingly argue in support of population control in the country. Population control dehumanises people, violates human rights and is scientifically dubious.
It is ridiculous how a few self-centred people can come up with and continue to push for the tired population control ideology. Is population control the only alternative and solution to the many problems and challenges facing Kenya today? Certainly not! This has and will result in more problems, some of which have been proven over time.
It is sad some people are very pejorative when it comes to the population of their fellow human beings. It has gone as far as aborting the foetuses in the name that "we are controlling the population" for the sake of "development". Authentic development is about providing social conditions that allow people to thrive and reach their fulfilment and goals in life. The agenda of population control has in its repertoire abortion, coercion, relentless propaganda and self-centredness, among other things.
The reality is that scarcity will always persist with or without high population. It is one of the critical problems of the economy. Scarcity may arise due to the limited resources that exist and Kenya is exempted. In fact, the more one becomes richer the more one has to choose from various important alternatives and thus proves that scarcity increases the richer a person becomes.
This only means that scarcity is not the result of "overpopulation" but rather it may be the result of other factors such as growth in people's standards of living, rise in per capita income and more so, greed. Mahatma Gandhi said that there is enough for everybody but not enough for the greed of just one person.
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Two-thirds of the Kenyan population is made up of the youth. It's only wise to appreciate the young people as opportunities rather than viewing them as a burden. Some people say that a high population of youth in the society is precarious since most are unemployed and end up engaging in criminal activities, which is unsafe for society.
They add that there is increased dependency ratio in society. Is this a valid reason for reducing the fertility rate so as to reduce the population of the youth in the society? How far has the government of Kenya gone with the youth development programmes to promote youth employment? Whose responsibility is that? The youth, society or Government?
It is absurd to target young people as the main cause of the rise in dependency ratio without considering the ageing population that will also in the long run increase the dependency ratio since they will not be working any more. What will become of Kenya? Europe is already an ageing population! They are trying every means to increase their fertility rate. This is an example and Kenya, judging by the way things are, is following the same path and if not careful then our lovely nation will find itself in the same "pit" that Europe is in at the moment.
Nobel winner Amartya Sen, in his book Development as Freedom, defines poverty as the deprivation of basic capabilities rather than merely lowness of incomes. In agreement with Sen's approach, then it is unethical to consider family planning as the only alternative of reducing poverty.
A research conducted by National Research Council back in the 1980s shows that demographic factors to some extent affect the economic progress and development of nations, but it is of little significance compared to some considerations such as poor economic policies, bad governance, corruption, inter alia, which should be dealt with accordingly so as to lessen poverty
