What
Type of Population Management Policies can be Implemented in the Philippines
by: Arch. Merant B. De
Vera, uap
Can
the growing Population be controlled? The Majority of the world’s population
will soon live in urban areas. This is true for developing countries as well as
for the developed worlds. Most of the world’s population growth will take place
in the urban areas of poor countries. Urbanization is not a new phenomenon. Babylon
had an estimated population of 350,000, Rome reached 1.1 million inhabitants
and the population of Angkor present Cambodia was 1.5 Million (Schneider,
1960).
In
the Philippine setting, a lot of our local Government leaders and Agencies are
not capable of managing rapid urban growth. As a result, more and more people
live unplanned, often to illegal shanty-towns, with limited access to basic
services and with environmental conditions that threatens life and health. The
political often attempts to stop migration and even to force people to move out
again. Such policies – including forced eviction - have failed. Only
totalitarian governments in China and South Africa under apartheid, Cambodia during
Pol Pot’s regime and recently Zimbabwe have temporary managed to halt
Population growth through repressive means. In China, however, the policy is
changing and urbanization is now being seen as promoting economic growth.
Realizing
that it is impossible to stop urban growth by force, many governments in other
countries have implemented programmes to encourage potential migrants to stay
in rural areas. Success has been limited and the effects even
counter-productive, since rural development programmes bringing better
education, information and communication seem to promote rather than prevent
migration. Such programmes, as well as the promotion of alternative production
to continued urbanization, but can improve living conditions for the rural
population locally. Many rural programmes aim to strengthen in site development
and so stem mobility. The underlying rationale can be found in the literature
on common property resource management and agricultural development that is
replete with statements of expected declines in migration flows due to
successful employment creation and resource generation. Current trends in
population mobility and urbanization suggest that policy needs to become more
flexible to provide services to people who are on the move. New arrangements
that can provide migrant workers with access to critical information on labor
markets and rights as well as basic services in health, education, shelter and
food are needed.
Generally,
policies have wrongly been based on the assumption that urban growth could be
confined if migration is reduced.
However, since net migration, as we have seen, only accounts for about 30
percent of urban population growth, 85 percent of the growth would remain even
if migration was halved (which in reality is impossible).In some countries,
policy makers may have hoped that by not providing land or services for
low-income group, migrants will be discouraged from coming, and there would be
pressure. Such policies have made life even more difficult for the urban poor,
but have not had major impact on urbanization. Another strategy to relieve
pressure on the bigger cities and at the same time improve services for the
rural population is to promote the development of small and medium-sized towns.
This could support agricultural developments, but would not reduce migration.
To
conclude, urbanization is a universal and irreversible process. It will
continue wether we like it or not. External factors and internal policies may
temporarily speed up or slow down the pace of urbanization, but in the long run
they will not make much difference.
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