DR.Ahmed Hany:Population Development and the Environment

Poverty, Ignorance and diseases are the three factors that can destroy any community.

Sustained development goals cannot be achieved while they are ruining life and people’s motives for a better future.

Poor people especially in the countryside of the third world countries burn wood as fuel.

The waste accumulates along with the garbage around their homes causing suitable media for insects and rodents that carry innumerable diseases.

Many people, and youth in particular leave countryside to live in big cities for better income not for better life as they know they will live in shanty towns or poor districts.

Shanty towns around the big cities are one of the main problems that prevent sustainable development.

Inhabitants in these areas are suffering from both insect born diseases and the pollution of the urbanization.

Moreover most outlaws hide in these shanty towns.

Most families have many children and they force them to work and unfortunately some families depend totally on women and children for income.

As they have no other resource to live they resist reform or even moving to better places to live decently.

They consider talking about pollution and environment silly talk and not theirs.

It is a big mistake to consider them happy with their lives as they are merely accustomed to it.

They are used to crowdedness, street fights, loss of sanitary services like pure current water or sewage tubes and garbage everywhere and some shanty towns have no electricity services.

The famous social experiment tells us how crowdedness change the behavior.

Researchers brought fifty rats and they provided food for them on fifty plates.

Each rat went to a plate.

However when they put the same amount of food on one big plate few rats were on top of the food fighting other rats prevent them from approaching the food.

All rats fought each other around the plate.

 And when one could reach top of the plate the few winners on top beat and threw it away.

The importance of this experiment is that it tells that crowdedness instigates fights and providing services to the crowded areas with few outlets instigates more fights.

In shanty towns it is difficult to find an area for the government to build schools, hospitals or low price shops as a governmental support to serve people.

And even if these shops are present the crowdedness around will be a place for bullies to illegally manage the situation and take goods for themselves to resell them at higher prices.

The waste and garbage that are an important source of wealth in advanced countries due to recycling; Sweden is an example as it imports garbage from neighboring European countries to recycle it; these waste and garbage are source of illness in the heavy crowded areas in third world countries.

It is not only the crowdedness but also the people’s behavior that are acquired.

When someone holds a piece of paper and wants to throw it away and he finds a clean place he keeps holding the paper, however if he is present in a place where dirt is around and everywhere most probably he will drop it on the ground beside the garbage.

What are the motives to change people’s behavior?

It is not enough to transfer people to other wide well-built areas while the behavior does not change.

Fear and incentives are the most important drives to change behavior.

Health education is an important part in public health curriculum in medical schools.

It is the duty of every doctor to educate patients and the community about health.

In the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century there were famous successful campaigns to educate people about bilharzia and birth control.

Another campaign is needed to tell mothers that collection of garbage in streets, on home stairs and leaving them at home will cause diseases to their children.

At the same time there should be a system to collect garbage on daily basis so that keeping the new areas clean and healthy.

Health and environmental education for people should use the social media that youth use to get information and entertainment.

The more the media uses incentives and fear is the more it succeeds to change community behavior.

To reach youth authorities may publish notes on the net with questions for the readers and if they answer them they receive bonus whether it is money or gifts.

The incentives should be valuable to encourage the youth to share.

The notes may include the missions of the environmental, developmental or population development aims.

Sponsoring the project may be through the big business companies and icons and their shares may be deduced from their taxes.

Another incentive is that if a student completed some levels he would get some marks to help him to attend a university or he may be eligible for a scholarship in private universities.

Another incentive is if he passes certain levels he might be eligible for a non-profit loan to start a project or he might get the capital needed to start his project.

The ads to inform about health and environment should be added to high rate videos that are frequented by youth and women.

Educating youth and women is the formula that always makes a difference.

Through incentives and fear the authorities can change people’s behavior and at the same time educate population about many subjects that may be a surplus to the development of the country.

The conclusion:

Population development is one of the pillars to improve environment and for sustainable development.

The authorities should use the recent means to reach people and to change their behavior.

The new districts and compounds that were built for those who were used to live in shanty towns need plans to change people’s behavior and to make these areas productive and add to the development.