Why the global population trends should be an electoral interest

By Jackie Batamuliza

As of 2015, the global population was estimated to be 7.3 billion, with the 60% (4.4 billion) living in Asia, 16% (1.2 billion) living in Africa, 10% (738 million) living in Europe, 9% (634 million) living in Latin America and the Caribbean. The remaining 5% (358 milion) live in North America and the Oceania 3.9 million people.

Marcus Garvey taught us that a people without the knowledge of their past history are like a tree without roots. Remembering the history of imperial relations with Africa, there should be a degree of certainty that she is at the same place she was at when Europe's Berlin conference (1884) divided her up for colonial interests, when she was immunised by the International Monitory Fund and the World Bank against development through the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s.

As a result, she has continuously bled. That these things were done with deliberate intentions to keep the continent underdeveloped, is something I don't wish to justify but what is justifiable, is that these gestures are very evident of man's nature and his instinctive tendencies of Self Preservation.

China (1.4 billion), India (1.3 billion) remain the largest countries in the world representing 19% and 18% of the world's population respectively. Africa remains the fastest growing major area and more than half of the global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa. She is also projected to have an additional 1.3 billion people by 2050.

Asia is projected to be the second largest contributor to the future global population growth adding 0.9 % by 2050. Europe is projected to have smaller population than in 2015.

Respecting these truths and the democratic systems of governance plus the free market economies that we run, both of which find life in the idea of numbers, prudence should have us thinking about what it is we should expect in the years to come.

Will democracy as we know it, continue to be the form of government that nations will be required to adopt or should we expect some modifications? The ongoing questions regarding the United States' infringement on the Citizens' Civil Liberties seem to be a road leading to a new arena, but what will that Arena be like?

The wars of the guns have arguably been reduced by the United Nations, but there is a clear war on the mind-the people that we are. The reason why we should awake to it is not because we are Africa, or the developing world, but because we have witnessed the effects of the disparity of the human spirit in international politics.

The hegemonic war of communists and capitalists (between 1947 and 1991) should serve as an example. By the end of the war, coups had become synonymous with the politics of Africa and the developing world. Presently, there is confirmation that many were facilitated by the CIA. What we were left with were broken alliances, failed polities, collapsed economies and a society driven back to tribal tendencies. In all of this, the citizenry were being told, the bad leaders were being replaced. The effects of this pattern are still evident to this day.

Africa's use of smart phones has tremendously grown and the youth use a big number of them. It is a regrettable to think that, regardless of how many positive developments there are in the world, the videography of our time is filled with pornography (from which we are already bleeding through the high rate of HIV infections, at least for Uganda), we have pop culture which has infused us with loss of Identity and direction, all of a sudden, a generation has become musical, and lately there is an addition of spiritualism and violence in music videos, TV shows, video games. It is partly the reason why the behavior of the youth has become increasingly questionable.

It is characterized by rowdy and violent methodologies of dealing with challenges, despicable disregard for age and seniority which is mistaken for freedom, the false convictions of the possibilities of what is fiction etc. The bedrock of this is the subtle mental chaos that exists in their minds. One would liken the human mind to a bank. You can only withdraw what you have deposited and I believe it is the very reason why there is this effort to determine what is in this generation's mind.

Uganda is the youngest nation in the world, with over 70% of the population below 30 years of age. That these things should pass without raising our eye brows is a sign that we learned nothing and forgot everything. It is a very primary interest that we awake to the Challenges of our times. Our opportunities are fragilities too and we have got to be up to the task.

We have the regional political atmosphere, the fragile neighborhoods, the population structure, the natural resources, a panicking international community etc. We've got to end up with candidates that guarantee the stability of this Nation's Pillars so that this generation is grounded for what is ahead.

For God and My Country

The writer is the programmes associate with the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies.