E/CN.4/1503 Page 35
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71. First among these is the rate of population growth in what
we shall call the South. This may be such that the population can double in one generation, whereas it is levelling out or
even falling in the North. To give a few examples, the
average annual population growth in the 36 countries of the World Bank's "low income" group (countries with a per capita
GNP of $370 or
$370 or under) is 2.6 per cent, that
that is to say three
to four times that of the 18 "industrial market economies" of
Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand and
the six "nonmarket industrial economies" of Eastern Europe. It is 26 times that of Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany
or the United Kingdom, all of which have a 0. 1
per cent
annual growth, while the German Democratic Republic has a
negative growth rate of 0.1 per cent. The consequence in the
South is the entry into an already crowded work force of a
youthful population whose expectations are not always going to
be met.
72.
Secondly, there is global food insecurity in the South and
a hunger-induced rise in death rates. In some countries, one
child in four dies before its fourth birthday.
Malnutrition
What the
...
drawn
opens the way for a range of diseases, some of which will be fatal,
so that life expectancy in some countries of the South is as low as 40-42, compared to 72-74 in the North.
World Bank
Bank has called "vicious circles of poverty
tightest of all round the least developed countries" and
Galbraith has termed the "equilibrium of poverty" translate into a prediction that by the year 2000, anything between 630 and 850 million people will still be living at below a satis- factory subsistence level.