>> sabalenka president has fled the country among protests over the economic crisis. they took a military plane to the maldives. the residential palace had been stormed on sunday. >> the sri lankan people have been spellbound, listening to

the travels, trying to get from one military base to an airport and missing flights. all of these things with the web closing in and they are getting increasingly desperate and the latest we are hearing is that basically he boarded a military flight that has been confirmed to have arrived in the maldives carrying the president, his wife, one military brigadier who is a bodyguard and one other male passenger. >> the latest hearing of the u.s. house committee hearing against the january 6 insurrection is focusing on an oval office meeting that has been described as unhinged. trump is accused of witness tampering. investigators are seeking constructions -- connections between trump's weight ring --

trump's right wing associates and the oath keepers. the un security council has agreed to extend cross-border aid deliveries into syria for six months. the last authorization expired monday. eu finance ministers have given croatia approval after the euro dropped to the lowest level against the u.s. dollar in 20 years. the last country to join the single currency was lithuania. that is it for the news. i'll be back in half an hour. inside story is next. ♪

anastasia: eight billion people on the earth by november. that's the forecast from the united nations. but global population growth is slowing down and many societies are also getting older, so how do we deal with the challenges ahead? this is "inside story." hello there and welcome to the program. i'm nastasia tay. now the world's population is growing but at its slowest pace in 70 years. that's the conclusion of the un's latest global population forecast. we are generally living longer

and healthier lives than previous generations but this the report also says will have huge implications for our economy, social welfare systems, and our environment. the number of people on our planet is supposed to hit 8 billion by and then increase by november half a billion towards the end of this decade but birth rates meanwhile are falling in many countries. in the coming years global population growth will be concentrated in just eight nations. democratic republic of congo, egypt, ethiopia, nigeria, pakistan, the philippines, tanzania, and india, which is expected to surpass china as the most populous nation on the planet next year. the global population is also getting older. the director of the united nations population division explains the effects of aging societies worldwide. >> traditionally we had many more children than older people

to take care of and now it's switching to a point where you know depending on how you define the age groups, the number of older people will eventually be larger than the number of children. this has implications for rather obvious reasons that you've got a lot of private and public arrangements to care for people at older ages, there are financial implications involved , especially for government budgets, but there are also real concerns about the living conditions for those elderly people. what will that be like and will there be adequate social protections to ensure that this growing population of older people is not impoverished? nastasia: we'll bring in all of our guests in just a moment but first this report from pavnei in new delhi. reporter: next year india is set to surpass china and the gap

between these two nations could increase by this could help 2050. india and many will raise. -- in many ways. for example india has been pushing for more representation internationally experts say that concerns and demands could carry more weight, especially at forums like the united nations . on the economic front this makes india the world's largest consumer market, one that could invite a lot more investment now . domestically population control has been a contentious electoral issue. experts have advocated for more focus on reproductive rights and justice. this includes improving girls' education, increasing the number of women in the workforce, and improving maternal health. some of these efforts have been effective because the rate of population growth has slowed down considerably, but there are many challenges. the pandemic has reversed many of these gains, many women have been forced to quit the workforce, and there has been an

increase in child marriages. experts say there needs to be more awareness so family planning becomes an issue of choice and not chance and coercion. nastasia: well there's obviously plenty to take apart from this report, but i do want to start with where we are at the moment . we're obviously living in a pandemic and i believe the report suggests million excess deaths to the end of 2021, a fall in life expectancy, but that all seems to be a bit of a blip given the trends that we're looking at. so we're mostly living longer but reproducing less. daryl you wrote a book called "empty planet" just a couple of years back. do you still think that that's the way we are headed? darrell: yes. and even faster than we were talking about in the book and really that the focus of all of this we can talk about the pandemic we can talk about aging we can talk about those kinds of things but the real point in the

analysis is fertility. that's really the empty -- what empty planet is about. what's happening to fertility rates. nastasia: well they're collapsing well with the medium fertility scenario i believe the un is projecting that global population will peak before the end of this century so at just -- century. kathleen, i believe you were very much involved with the last u.n report on the world's population so this projection is obviously as daryl said sooner than the last projection what's -- projection. what is driving the change? kathleen my understanding is : that the global population projections are put together every two to three years from a number of different national censuses and they haven't the long-range projections have not changed too much over the years . there is a lot of uncertainty about population trends moving into the future and it has a lot to do with the kinds of policies and programs that are in place in countries all over the world

. the u.n. has projected that the range of possible population futures by 2100 are from a low of 7 billion to a high of 14.8 billion. that is a very wide range of possibility for how population could grow in the future and i would argue that that has significant implications for the health and well-being of people and for the health and well-being of the planet. nastasia: more on the trends in a moment. i want to look at the growth that we're seeing on the horizon . eight billion people on this planet by november give or take a year according to the report and much of that growth is going to be taking place in india so poonam i was looking at the number of births per woman there and it actually seems to have drops. so what's driving population growth? >> there are a number of factors. the first is that education, which as we all know is the best

contraceptive, but girls are getting higher education levels , are taking place second i believe the government has invested in family planning with a focus in the high fertility districts in india. in india it's a very uneven situation where much of south india has reached replacement level fertility. in fact, 24 states in india and the six states in north india which had high fertility rates the rates are coming down because the government through the new programming is focusing in these high fertility districts. third, there's greater access to larger number of contraceptives . every time a new contraceptive is introduced, there is a 6% to 12% increase globally or within any country where it is

increased. we had a much higher fertility rate among muslims earlier but the muslim fertility rate has declined very sharply in the last two decades, especially in the last decade and a growing middle class as well as the fact that people value education for girls more than they used to is what is helping. and finally, age at marriage is increasing, which also helps with fertility decline, as well as postponement of the first child and spacing method. nastasia: poonam despite all of that though we are still expecting india to overtake china as the world's most populated country by potentially next year. and i see that's already beginning to spur talk of a permanent seat on the u.n.

security council. given the trends that we're seeing and where this population growth is taking place daryl, , let me ask you what kind of political shifts should we be looking for? >> i think we should be increasingly looking for uh population power to drive political power and what we haven't brought up here is the only continent that in the world in which there is growth, significant growth going long-term in the future is africa. that's really the only continent or i guess region depending on how you want to define it that really has still above replacement rate population both -- replacement rate population growth. there will increasingly be a fos on africa. nastasia: more on africa in a moment but because we are talking about reproductive

rights, i want to also bring in at this point the u.n. secretary general's response to the population forecast that we saw . antonio guterres says it's an occasion to celebrate the health achievements that have extended life spans and reduce child mortality worldwide but he did also criticize what he called renewed assaults on a woman's right to access health services and to make informed choices on whether or not to even have a baby. complications from pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of death for girls between ages 15 and 19. parts of africa and south asia account for 80% of maternal deaths worldwide and last month the u.s. supreme court overturned roe v. wade a , landmark ruling that guaranteed abortion rights . meanwhile poland has also restricted access to the procedure. there's obviously vast inequity when it comes to reproductive rights. kathleen how does that then , translate into broader patterns of an equity? kathleen: i think one of the most fascinating things to think

about and to look at when we're when we're examining population trends is to understand what they tell us about persistent inequities across society. whether that's inequities in reproductive rights and reproductive access to reproductive health care, which is still a huge problem for many people for young women and girls around the world who would like to be able to delay pregnancy or avoid pregnancy but don't have access to meaningful information and services that would enable them to achieve reproductive autonomy. this is a very basic fundamental human right for reproductive autonomy that hundreds of millions of people around the world still do not have. it also tells us a lot about gender inequity, and the ways in which hundreds of millions of girls are not able to go to school, the ways in which women are not empowered in the workforce or in the household to be able to really realize opportunities in their lives that include motherhood, but extend beyond motherhood. so a lot of what is driving

persistent rapid population growth, which as our other guest says is happening in africa but also in pockets all across the world, is this indication of a lack of rights in inequities, especially in the health and gender spaces. nastasia: let's turn to africa. looking at the numbers more than half of the growth we're -- we are looking at decreasing reproduction rates around the world as people get richer but i know there are also some experts who argue that africa's rate of decrease is actually less or slower than perhaps some other parts of the developing world because culturally the ideal family size is larger than elsewhere. what do you make of that? >> the u.n. recognizes that the data from africa is in great. we do not know precisely what is going on in africa.

but if the past is prologue, i expect that the trends that we see in other parts of the world that are moved incredibly rapidly in terms of changing their fertility rates mainly as a result of culture, that the effect of that is going to be significant in africa too, we're just having a pretty difficult time measuring it. can you good population data. you look at the the fertility rate in a place like nairobi and it's pretty close to replacement rate. so the trends that are happening everywhere else in the world are also going to be happening in africa, we just don't know how fast because it's really hard to get a handle on what's going on for example in nigeria. nastasia: some of the demographics we have in africa are interesting. 200 million people in nigeria are under 30 so we are seeing a rise in the working age population.

this so-called demographic dividend that could either be an opportunity for economic growth or potentially a cause for political strife. poonam, how have you seen that he played out in india? >> in india the main reason , fertility will grow is because we have 360 million young people, many of who are at a reproductive health age or will reach there very soon. but in india we keep talking about the demographic dividend because we have a large youth population, but the problem is that the window is small, it is not a permanent feature so the window for harvesting the demographic dividend is close to 15 years more at an average. some states, a little longer. we have to invest in young people's education but more than that, also jobs for the

demographic dividend to take place and become a reality, we have to invest in jobs and at this point of time, there is huge number of young people who are not skilled to even take advantage of the job opportunities that do exist, so if we don't do something very quickly in terms of skill, training skill development and then in jobs for young people we , are going to have a demographic disaster. right now we have an opportunity. earlier we thought it is very automatic that the demographic dividend will happen so in india , we have virus killing and so on but we also need to have more temporary methods and access greater access for young people to contraception and finally sex education.

and especially information on reproductive not just rights and justice, we also need access to family planning services and temporary methods. india focuses primarily on sterilization, which is a permanent method, while young people need access to temporary methods and they don't plan families, they need access to contraception. so the earlier india begins to recognize and bring into and out of schools greater information on comprehensive sexuality education will do better but skills is something we are aware but india's grappling with and i am grateful -- nastasia: i want to bring in kathleen. i see you nodding. and agreeing. do you see this demographic dividend as a potential threat

or only an opportunity? kathleen: one of the things that's really critical to understand about the demographic dividend is that it is realized when there is a decline in fertility. that is the thing that triggers a demographic dividend, so that the proportion of the population that is in the working age is larger. as mentioned, it is a brief period of time, it requires this decline in fertility, it also requires investments in education and employment opportunities for that brief period of time that we have this really large cohort of the population in the working age so the demographic dividend does not come simply from rapid population growth. it's rapid population growth followed by a period of fertility decline that results in this big chunk of the population in the working age realm. and that is really difficult to accomplish, but there are a lot of opportunities for it, but it

does require lots of investment in contraceptive options as poonam was mentioning, in sexuality education and things that advance gender equity, in access to reproductive health care, in a wide range of contraceptive methods and then also the plethora of education and employment opportunities that need to be ready for this very large cohort that is coming into the working age for relation but that surely also has some political implications . >> the interesting thing and listening to this conversation is how much it is going to change over the years because it will shift from this 1970's overpopulation population bomb type of discourse into one that will get very controversial about how do we promote having children. we have many countries now that

are experiencing population decline. countries like italy for example are losing 50,000 people a year from population. japan loses about half a million people from their population every year. a spain loses about 50,000 people from their population every year. we have a whole series of countries in places like eastern europe in which the numbers are even more shocking. so what we're going to start seeing is a shift in the conversation away from just meeting the challenges of the developing world to start talking about what we're going to do in terms of population management in countries that are really going to be challenged by aging and shrinking populations . by 2030, the entire global baby boom is going to be 65 or older and we are not ready for that. nastasia: how has that been playing out in india? we are talking about a broader

population of older people living longer. that has resource implications of its own. >> yes. it's something worrying for those of us who work on population issues because india does not have any social security, whether it is health or financial so we are worried about the aging population but there isn't much work being done in india. it's only actually after the last report of the u.n. that there was even conversation beginning about aging. in india, where a large percentage of people there's huge migration from the villages , there is very little security in terms of caregiving also for the aged. india has to prepare itself for making universal health coverage

a reality. we have to strengthen our public health system and reimagine the public health system which we recognized during covid finally that it is in public health interest in the icu. the aging population is something india will have to plan for and invest in -- nastasia: i want to turn us to the environment and not run out of time before we get there. were talking about constraints on resources. obviously a huge one is what we're going to see in terms of climate change impact. a lot of this population growth is going to be taking place in climate vulnerable areas. more people on the planet means more of a strain on resources.

we are already seeing concerns around food security. kathleen, are you worried about the population trends we are seeing? kathleen: i am very worried. and i want to disagree with daryl a little bit about what which of the population trends we need to be most concerned about. certainly an aging population is something that we need to plan for prepare for and have adequate social security systems in place to to manage an aging population and to think about how we adequately employ a smaller workforce smaller proportion of population workforce in some places but i really think that the larger problem is that the population is still growing globally from around 8 billion today and could be up to 14 billion. [crosstalk] nastasia: daryl, go for it.

>> there is a 100% variation. that is not much of an estimate. [crosstalk] >> i let you talk. let me talk. if you look at the work that the bill and melinda gates foundation published in the lancet that was done by a whole global series of demographers , and it was done before covid, they don't even come to that number. this is just a theory and i think there is a lot of cultural change taking place around these things that will cause fertility decline to accelerate. the population increase is not going to get even close to 10.4 million people, we're going to be probably somewhere between eight and nine billion people , which is not much further from

where we are today but it will be a different mix of people. highly urbanized and much older than the population we have in europe today. nastasia: challenges and opportunities. we'll have to leave our discussion there for today but we'll be keeping an eye on how this all plays out over the coming decades and centuries. thank you to our guests and to you for watching. you can see this program again anytime by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. and for further discussion, do go to our facebook page. that's facebook.com/ajinsidestory. and remember you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is @ajinsidestory. from me, nastasia tay, and the whole team here in doha, bye for now. ♪

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