White house, picket fence, and ... how many children!?

Though still recovering from the devastating loss that keeps Oman's football team from the Asian Cup (a few pics on this blog), and sea turtle withdraw after my trip to Ras al Jinz, I am managing to pull it together and write something for the blog.

A comment on my food security post reminded me of the need to bring "population" into the fold when discussing food, water, and development. My year spent studying water policy making in Oman and arid countries has heightened my concern that exponential human growth is irreversibly complicating humanity's quest to thrive survive on this planet.

Whereas water has always contained human development in the past, modernity has allowed us to more quickly pump, desalinate, and distribute water to lands that never had the hope of seeing a drop of rain. The aflaj water channels in Oman, and the dams and water mangement systems in Yemen, sustainably administered water resources throughout the peninsula's history. Oil wealth and modern technology have changed settlement patterns, standard of living expectations, and therefore the use of water. While aflaj continue to dry up in Oman due to groundwater overpumping and a changing climate, the demand for water is continuously increasing as the Sultanate's population is expected to double by 2050.

I stumbled upon the Oman Ministry of National Economy's National Population Strategy a few weeks ago and was curious to see how they were addressing this issue. Keep in mind- I have one friend who is one of 20 children (a family of one father and three wives) and another who is one of at least 7 (all from one wife). How is the government planning on changing the people's mindset concerning the ideal Omani family? A concept that is not changing as rapidly as the physical modernization of the Sultanate.

First thing to note, there is an entire section on the "Justifications for the Formulation of the National Population Strategy," I'll bold what I consider interesting:

1. Engendering a systematic framework to achieve linkage and integration between the programme's included in the successive Five-Year Development Plans related to population policy such as the birth spacing, adult education, illiteracy obliteration and other health, educational and environmental programme's.
2. Issuance of the State's Statute which ensured the rights of all citizens in health care, social security, education, security, justice and equality before the law without discrimination as to gender, color, religion, doctrine or the social status.
3. The continuous increase in population needs for basic services such as education, health, housing and sanitary drainage.
4. Fragility of natural resources and scarcity of water.
5. Fluctuation in the GDP rates as they are linked to the oil resource.
6. The Oman Vision, formulated by "Oman 2020" conference in May 1995, included a number of recommendations regarding population issues.
7. Progress achieved by the Sultanate in area of IT, enabling the provision of a broad automated database.
8. The international conferences' recommendations related to population and development which call for development of population strategies, such as the international conference for population and development held in Cairo in 1994
9. Enforcement of the general framework of the population strategy of the GCC States.

I think we can summarize by saying: Oman needs to take up the issue of population control because people are living longer + there is no guarentee that oil wealth will sustain a growing population + equality means that more individuals are included in the body of people that are entitled public goods + the modernization of the Sultanate and the agreements/frameworks it has entered into, necessitate discussing and manipulating population growth.

So the strategy itself is said to aim to improve "citizens' life through":

1. Realizing a population growth rate that conforms with the sustainable development exigencies.
2. Intensifying efforts to improve quality of healthy life through provision of high quality primary health care services and facilitation their access to all society individuals, supporting family health, protection of community against epidemics and infectious disease particularly those transmitted by water and sex such as HIV/AIDS, diseases of pregnancy, birth and puerperium; improving nutrition, consumption patterns and environment.
3. Improving fertility behaviour, and continuance of efforts exerted towards achieving low levels of mortality particularly among women, mothers and children, and prolonging life expectancy at birth.
4. Continuance of efforts to increase enrollment rates in education particularly for basic and general education, combating illiteracy among adults specially for females, and decreasing dropout rates.
5. Rationalizing emigration from villages to urban areas, and achieving population distribution that is in balance with economical and environmental resources and achieving sustainable development.
6. Rationalizing expatriates workforce recruitment, furthering Omanization policies to face employment challenges and control of causes of poverty.
7. Deepening the link between education, training and qualification, development of human resources, upgrading the production efficiency of Omani workforce through training and qualification programme's. This will motivate businessmen to employ Omani workforce of high efficiency and productivity.
8. Achieving gender equality, empowering women to realize their full potentials, ensuring furtherance of their participation in social, economical and political development and protection of their constitutional rights.
9. Environmental and natural resources sanitation by controlling urban and agricultural activities, and reducing their adverse impacts on environment such as unjust pumping of underground water at both urban agglomerations and commercial farms. Such practice will lead to deterioration of agric. lands, and pollution of underground water by towns' residues, sanitary drainage, chemical fertilizers and insecticides resulting in adverse health effects. Further, to work towards adoption of modern agric. systems and use of advanced agric. techniques.
10. Ensuring the regional dimension for development to narrow the gap in the social and economical indicators between those in towns and villages.

With linkages to education, natural resources, work and more, a population strategy is immense. But without limiting the growth of the Omani nation, oil wealth, food and water will be stretched too thin to maintain the standard of living currently enjoyed. Andrew Revkin on his New York Times Blog "Dot Earth" tries to address the human and scientific interactions that complicate the progression of human life on Earth. As his site explains: "By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits." It seems that we are so far from a balanced equation as of today. But this kind of holistic investigation of population and environment is what we need to see more of in the news.

Can I have some anecdotal or statistical evidence on the current Omani conception of the ideal family? Is there an equivalent to the common American dream to settle down in the suburbs, white house and a picket fence, 2.5 children and a dog? Are families indeed getting smaller here? I have many questions on this topic so please leave responses!

[pardon my random photos. population talk is more entertaining when baby sea turtles and sunrises are introduced! also reminds us that we don't want to fill this earth so fully that we can't see turtles hatching and empty beaches at daybreak]