Sustainability, World Population and Food Supply

A few weeks ago I remarked in astonishment that, its very laudable efforts to reduce suffering in the third world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation places little or no emphasis on contraception and the other elements of family planning.  In my post “Improving Conditions for the Poorest of the Poor,” I noted that the Foundation is in a class by itself when it comes to preventing and curing childhood disease, but it doesn’t seem to understand the only way to reduce the amount of misery in the world is to manufacture less of it in the first place. 

I wrote:

Of the list of the 20 sovereign countries with the highest birth rates on Earth, 19 of them are in sub-Saharan Africa; we’re talking about 125 million babies per year.   (Gates’) resources would be far better spent addressing the social conditions that cause tens of millions of babies to be conceived each year who are doomed to be malnourished and condemned to die in searing agony. Almost all those who survive their childhood will live in unimaginable levels of poverty, disease, ignorance and squalor.  Before they die, however, in most cases they will reproduce themselves with an appalling number of offspring, thus repeating and expanding the cycle.

In a 60-minute-long interview with Charlie Rose, contraception was mentioned for just a few seconds, during which Melinda offered that It’s women’s #1 issue.  (Yes, that’s right; it’s by far the most important request that women make:  Please!  Help me stop having so many children!)

In the few moments devoted to the subject, she mused: “It’s weird.  When I visit them, all I want to talk about is vaccines; all they want to talk about is contraception.”

But is that really so weird? If I were having those conversations, I’d be inclined to regard them as perfectly rational, though desperate, pleas for help.

Apparently, living under these miserable conditions, and caring about the welfare of their children as only mothers can, means wanting to create fewer of them.  Mothers seem to know something that defies our understanding as philanthropists:  alleviating suffering means manufacturing less of it.  This is what these women are telling us with heart-piercing clarity. Why is this so hard for us to grasp?  Why aren’t we listening?

Fortunately, the Foundation has a certain level of focus on education, and obviously that’s better than none at all.  But we all need to realize: it’s really the only thing that matters.  Educated women have a small fraction of the fertility rate that uneducated women do.

Indeed, if there’s an answer here, it lies in providing a broad level of education for women.  Over a period of decades, it has been proven to result in better family planning, far higher personal productivity resulting in higher self-esteem and more focus on the workplace, and, at the end of the day, families that are healthier, stronger, and smaller.  If anything about this is “weird,” it’s that we can’t seem to comprehend this concept.

Here’s a closely related subject I want to mention: hunger.   Right now, there are 850 million people in the world suffering from hunger.  How do I know?  I just watched this incredible piece featuring the actions of Zlatan Ibrahimović, world-famous soccer player. who offers a unique and dramatically beautiful way to make his point about world hunger.  Do yourself a favor.  Take five minutes ouf of your life and check it out.

Being aware of the enormity of the suffering is important.  Ending it is even more so, and again, educating the world’s women lies at the very core.