ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the global population had exceeded 6 billion; it took just 12 years for the population to increase from 5 to 6 billion. Developing countries (Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding Japan) and Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) currently make up 80 per cent of the world’s population, and 61 per cent of the global total is accounted for by Asia alone, driven by the population giants China and India. The global annual rate of population increase peaked at 2.04 per cent per year in the late 1960s, and had declined to 1.37 per cent per year by 2005. Developing region population is currently growing at a rate of 1.44 per cent per year (see figure), and growth rates in Africa still exceed 2.3 per cent per year, the highest growth rate of any major area.