THE United Nations (UN) says the world’s population will reach eight billion on November 15, with India replacing China as the most populous country on Planet Earth.

A report entitled ‘World Population Prospects 2022’ was released on July 11, World Population Day; and this year’s theme is, ‘A World of Eight Billion: Towards a Resilient Future For All – Harnessing Opportunities and Ensuring Rights and Choices For All’.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said that despite 2022 being “a milestone year” for global population, the population growth rate fell below one per cent in 2020, and is growing at its slowest pace since 1950.

Looking way ahead, the report also says that the world’s population could potentially reach 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.4 billion by the 2080s, but is “projected to remain steady at 10.4 billion until 2100”.

More than half of the population growth by 2050 is predicted to come from Africa, the world’s fastest-growing continent, despite a slowing of global fertility rate, but the current world population stands at 7.9 billion.

The UN report’s figures are naturally about births; nothing about the increasing deaths likely from the current global food and health crises already affecting Africa and India in ways like never before, or the incalculable number that can mount from hunger and starvation as Ukraine War sanctions continue to affect global wheat distribution from source nations, and food production in every country depending on fertiliser imports.

Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) didn’t await the UN’s report to start preparing for population growth.

Half of the region’s population is below age 31, requiring fundamental shifts in planning for today, tomorrow and beyond, as the global food and cost-of-living crises have long caused regional leaders to quickly shift-and-change gears, and fast-track plans for ensuring food production and security.

The region’s aim to cut food imports by 25 per cent by 2025 is achievable, and progress in that regard is measurable.

With responsibility for regional Food Safety and Security, Guyana is also showing its constant readiness to ‘lead from in front’ by investing in significantly improving all aspects of food production, directly assisting traditional farmers, and encouraging them to embrace new changes, as well as opening wide the new doors for youth with innovative, agro-entrepreneurial ideas to start-up new initiatives.

Even with projections for continued emigration, current economic and social improvements at home are also likely to see many Guyanese returning from abroad, with the population by 2025 still remaining below one million in a vast land of 83,000 square miles, or 215,000 square kilometers.

There’s always enough land to feed Guyana and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean, and enough people to work the land in old and new ways, combining traditional and modern techniques to better old practices, and introduce new approaches.

And in 2025, there’ll also be over 70,000 young Guyanese ready to cast their votes for the first time.

They will have grown up in 21st Century Guyana, and be in a position to assess how the winds of change affected them between 2,000 and the present, to decide which elected administrations have served Guyana better after the general elections under their watch, and since the discovery and development of Oil and Gas.

But until then, the immediate task continues to be one of the current PPP/C administration — under President, Dr Irfaan Ali, with the wise counsel of Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo, and demonstrably strong leadership of Prime Minister, Brigadier Mark Phillips — ensuring continuity in delivery of goods and services, while planning for a better future for all Guyanese, at home and abroad.