RECENTLY, we featured articles on the latest report by the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR) which indicates that Zambia’s city populations are expanding at an average rate of nearly four per cent per year.
Apart from the original article, there have been reactions from various sections of the readership with the last one being one from ZIPAR research fellow – human development, Gibson Masumba.
Following that article I have continued receiving reactions to it.
Some of them go as follows:
Hello Mr  Muyanwa
Although I did not read the original report, I wish to contribute as follows:
It is quite clear that ZIPAR is concerned with the welfare of the Zambian population in future and in this case ZIPAR is proposing population growth controls.
However, if you analyse various countries with small populations you find that the majority are poor. On the other hand countries with huge populations are fairly affluent. why?  This means that there is more to this problem than just population numbers.
The answer lies in resource management and productivity.   In Zambia I can safely inform you that our productivity is extremely low. I wish ZIPAR could look at how this can be enhanced.
Eben Sibbuku, another one reads as follows:
Thank you very much for the insights in the referenced article. I was specifically drawn by your argument:  ‘the only precondition for Zambia to harness demographic dividends…is to systematically discourage people from having more children.’ (The quoted words above are not mine but of Mr Masumba!)
I think slowing down the fertility rate is only part of the solution. Perhaps we need to realise that with the world becoming more globalised in all aspects, the current and future generations will be more innovative to pursue courses of actions which will enhance their welfare.
Thus, those bearing children will become more enterprising to take care of their families.
“This means that, we can emulate countries such as such Finland, Germany, Greece, Japan & Norway which for a long time have harnessed benefits from high fertility growth.
From face value, one would say that there is a positive correlation between the size of these economies and high fertility rates. I [am] drawn to believe that what these countries did was to ensure equitable distribution of resources,
Regards, Musa Kaoma.
The last one is a peculiar one in that it is from my fellow columnist
and colleague working for sister publication, Zambia Daily Mail.
Greetings James,
you may use part of this in your column. I don’t mind.
I have been keenly following the debate on population in your column.
At the risk of perpetuating the argument between researchers and non-researchers, allow me to also comment on this important issue.
For many years western-trained and groomed researchers have created an impression that population growth in sub-Saharan Africa is [a] bad thing and must be curbed.
They have tried to blame it for the region’s high poverty levels and disease burden.
While this stereotype may hold some credibility it is seriously flawed as a development argument.
Zambia is one of the luckiest developing countries with a fast growing youthful population, and this promises immense economic benefits for the future which by far supersede the negative impact of rapid population growth.
After my extensive tour of China last year, which took me to both urban cities and rural villages in the vegetated mountains, one lesson I learned is that a large population has economic benefits.
In the face of the slow-down of its economy, the second largest in the world, that country has refocused its attention on its large population as the new driver for economic growth in what is dubbed the ‘New Normal’.
China has realised the dangers of export-based economic growth. For the last 30 years it has created a monstrous manufacturing sector which has been exporting finished and semi-finished products to other parts of the world, including Africa.
The exports have been bringing in billions of dollars which the government has been investing in infrastructure development focusing on housing, industrial parks, hospitality and the development of an integrated transport system – road, railway, air and sea.
Because of a cocktail of factors the regions and countries that have been buying Chinese products have reduced their imports, causing a slowdown in that country’s exports.
China is encouraging its citizens to buy Chinese products and services. Officials said they are taking advantage of the huge population of local consumers to spur economic growth and rejuvenate the sluggish economy.
The Americans learned this lesson over a century ago, and has largely relied on local consumers.
And traditionally, Chinese are not keen on spending because of their age-old saving culture passed on from one generation to another.
But the younger population is changing all that because of their insatiable desire and curiosity to travel and see the world out there, which is forcing them to spend.
So none should be cheating us that we should stop bearing children because of our incapacity to look after them.
Charles Chisala, Journalist, Lusaka.