(MENAFN- The Peninsula) QNA/The Peninsula
Qatar's population policy seeks to balance population growth and sustainable development, stressed H E Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al Nabit, President of the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) and Chairman of the Permanent Population Committee.
Speaking to commemorate World Population Day today, Al Nabit stated that Qatar's Population Policy is an ongoing project and is subject to revision and reformulation in view of the rapid changes and the country's ambitious development plans.
According to him, the fundamental goal of the policy is to“balance population growth with the requirements of sustainable development to ensure a decent life for the people of Qatar, enhance their abilities, broaden their options and raise their participation in the progress and eminence of Qatari society.”
Consequently, several axes were adopted, each of which has a primary goal or goals that represent the policy's target by the end of the period specified for its implementation (2030) and sub-goals that contribute to achieving each goal.
Hence, Qatar's population policy seeks to map out the demographic features of tomorrow's Qatar in light of an ambitious development plan for the political developments in the world. Moreover, it focuses on managing the rapid population growth rates and addressing its repercussions, including the consequences of the demographic imbalance. Perhaps, the most prominent mechanism of this is the gradual but steady trend toward a knowledge-based economy.
In 2017, Qatar launched a new population policy 2017-2022 to minimise the country's demographic imbalance by encouraging the growth of the Qatari population and reducing the recruitment of foreign workers. The policy also seeks to control the country's high overall population growth rate.
The policy also aligns with one of the four pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030, which seeks to ensure the human development index of the Qatari cadre. QNV 2030 provided the general framework for developing successive national development strategies and formed the basis for the population policy that aimed to bring about a quantitative and qualitative change in population variables and related issues through a set of operational plans and programmes.
With a population of 2,657,333 in June 2022, Qatar, like other countries, celebrates World Population Day in response to the recommendation of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which approved July 11 each year to be observed by the international community as the World Population Day. This annual event aims to raise awareness of population-related issues and to focus attention on the urgency and importance of such matters in the context of comprehensive development plans and programmes and the need to find solutions to such issues.
According to the UN, the global population reached the 7 billion mark in 2011, reaching almost 7.9 billion in 2021. It is expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.
In a statement to mark the Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said,“Reaching a global population of eight billion is a numerical landmark, but our focus must always be on people. In the world we strive to build, 8 billion people means 8 billion opportunities to live dignified and fulfilled lives.”
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