UNITED NATIONS- As per report of the UN last Wednesday, the World's population will hit 7 billion by 2012 and top 9 billion in 2050, with the vast majority of increase coming from developing countries in Asia and Africa.
"We are still projecting that by 2050 the population of the world will be around 9.1 billion," says Hania Zlotnik, director of the UN Population Divisioin in a news conference. "The projections are based on the assumption that fertility that is now around 2.56 children per woman is going to decline to about 2.02 children per woman in the world." " there have been no big changes" from the previous estimate in 2006.
Zlotnik said if fertility remained about where it is now, then world population would reach 10.5 billion by 2050. If fertility fell even more than expected, to about 1.5, then the population would only increase to 8 billion by mid-century, she said.
Population growth will remain concentrated in the most populous countries through 2050. Nine nations are expected to account for half the projected increase: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, the U.S., Congo, Tanzania, China and Bangladesh, the report said.
While Russia, Japan, Italy, South Korea, Cuba, Ukraine, and many other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union are expected to decline at least 10 percent over the same period, U. N. said.