Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy - IUCN

I S S U E S & T R E N D S I N S U S T A I N A B L E D E V E L O P M E N T 2
SOCIAL INDICATORS OF THE NWFP, 1991-92 TABLE
LITERACY RATES
improved to 17%. The urban population is generally
better educated, at 36%, than the rural, at 13%.
The literacy rate among females is exceptionally
low, at 6.5%. Large investments have been made to
correct these distortions over the last decade, but
improvements have remained modest. In 1991-92,
the male and female school enrollment rates were
73% and 25% respectively. Similarly, as of 1991-
92, while 60% of the rural population and 85% of
the total had access to potable water, proper sanitation
coverage was only 2% of the population. Infant
and child mortality rates are 90 and 133 per thousand
births respectively. Most deaths are caused by
a lack of proper maternal care and waterborne
d i s e a s e s .
Availability of clean drinking water and basic
health care are directly related to environmental
health and need to be addressed on a priority basis.
Literacy is positively correlated with environmental
awareness, and is crucial to promote an understanding
of the implications of population growth. The
Government of NWFP is undertaking an ambitious
Social Action Programme (SAP) to address these
problems. The question remains how effectively and
consistently this will be implemented.
2.2.2
Male Female
(%) (%)
Urban 46.46 21.88
Rural 21.73 3.82
RURAL HEALTH NUMBER
Total population 13,023,000
Health outlets 1,187
Beds 8,061
Population served 9,913,000 (76%)
Population per outlet 8,350
Source: Government of NWFP. 1992. Social Action Programme 1992-93. PE&D Department, Peshawar.
Population Growth & Food Security
2.2
The population of the NWFP is increasing too quickly
to be considered sustainable. According to the 1981
census, 11 million people lived in the NWFP. By
1993, the estimate was 15.1 million. Based on these
figures, the density of population in the NWFP is 208
persons per square kilometre compared with the
national density of 145 persons. The population
growth rate between 1961 and 1981 was measured
at 3.3%, which was higher than the national average,
and it does not seem to have slowed down since then.
Similarly, in 1981, about 47% of the population was
below the age of 15, implying a greater dependency
and greater increase in population in the future.
In addition, 2.5 million Afghan refugees migrated
to the NWFP after the outbreak of the Afghanistan
war in 1979. Nearly 76% of them were women and
children. A large number of them have returned to
Afghanistan but, due to continuing hostilities there,
the refugee phenomena still affects the environment in
the NWFP. While refugees reinforced local
resources, particularly personnel and transport, their
net impact on the environment has been negative:
SARHAD PROVINCIAL CONSERVATION STRATEGY 13