Abstract

The reasons behind the debates and discussions on population growth and the impacts on economic, social, political, natural resources and environmental developments have different motives, for instance ideologies or class struggle. The so-called North-South-Conflict is one reason behind the issue. In other words, developed countries are not willing to share the resources of the Third World countries with these countries, that is, the developed countries are protecting their economic, political and military hegemonies. Also, the hypothesis of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 to 1834) and of his followers, the Neo-Malthusians is one reason behind the debates and discussions on population growth and the impacts on economic, social, political, natural resources and environmental developments. Therefore, the allegedly alarming figures about world population growth in thousands and in millions per second, per minute, per hour, per day, per month or per year without the necessary infrastructure or registration systems are created purposely to divert discussions and debates on resources allocation, distribution, and sharing. However, the discussions and debates on world population growth impacts on economic development and environmental developments have vital influences on international relations as well as on public perception in solving current economic, social and environmental problems in the Third World Countries, especially in Africa. Hence, the discussions and debates about “overpopulation” in the Third World Countries serve as a means of preserving the existing economic, social and political structures in the world. In order to make the issue more concrete, two different locations and study areas (Addis Ababa and Ambo Town/Ethiopia) are selected. Moreover, two case studies (empirical studies) are applied in this Research Paper, that is, one case study is to test the different hypotheses about the population growth impact on economic, social, political, natural resources and environmental developments and the other case study is to conduct empirical study and observations about the causes of poverty in different selected areas of western Ethiopia for example Ambo District.

Key words: World population, population growth, North-South-conflicts, hypothesis, “overpopulation”, Neo-Malthusians, Third World Countries, empirical studies.