Lecture Tim Dyson,iss,The Hague,The Netherlands,23 April 2009 part 1.mov — Transcript

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1. 0:00welcome everyone to the first lecture in
2. 0:04a series on the population question and
3. 0:10development welcome to the speakers
4. 0:13first of all who I'll briefly introduce
5. 0:14in a minute welcome president of society
6. 0:18for International Development Yos vanen
7. 0:21I know that this is a theme which is
8. 0:22close to your heart uh I'm happy that
9. 0:26this theme was brought up through Sid
10. 0:28and the world's population Foundation
11. 0:30who have jointly with ISS organized
12. 0:33these lecture series I'm happy that you
13. 0:36brought up this theme I'm happy that it
14. 0:40was the three of us who could bring
15. 0:43these lecture series together and
16. 0:44started with such eminent speakers as we
17. 0:46will have this afternoon my name is Luke
18. 0:48box I'm the director of The Institute of
19. 0:50social studies an Institute which Prides
20. 0:54itself in bringing a number of young
21. 0:56professionals to the Netherlands to
22. 0:58study questions exactly like the ones
23. 1:01that we are going to discuss this
24. 1:03afternoon why the importance well it is
25. 1:0615 years after
26. 1:08kywa and have we learned the
27. 1:11lessons have our politicians and other
28. 1:14politicians learned the lessons of
29. 1:17Cairo or is the debate about population
30. 1:21questions becoming essentially very
31. 1:24meager extreme with extreme positions
32. 1:28about population population control Etc
33. 1:32the danger indeed exists that in
34. 1:35developmental discussion population is
35. 1:39taken as a single issue and if there is
36. 1:41one thing that this series is going to
37. 1:44explore it is the complexity of the
38. 1:47population issues or the many issues
39. 1:49associated with it it is the complexity
40. 1:53which we will discuss in the six
41. 1:56different lectures that you will
42. 1:58hopefully assist and which we will start
43. 2:05today if there was one thing that Cairo
44. 2:08taught us it is that the simple control
45. 2:11measures that created so much havoc in
46. 2:14the 1950s and 60s simply would not
47. 2:16suffice
48. 2:17anymore a rights-based approach was
49. 2:20called for to a comprehensive population
50. 2:23policy with attention to many different
51. 2:26issues like gender like mortality
52. 2:28migration Etc
53. 2:33ET we need to challenge the simplistic
54. 2:36Neo malthusian voices which use
55. 2:39overpopulation in developing countries
56. 2:41to explain poverty or to indeed explain
57. 2:45environmental degradation or any other
58. 2:47argument for that matter we need to look
59. 2:50at population in a wider context in
60. 2:53relation to the greater issues the
61. 2:56greater nexuses as like for example
62. 2:59migration ation and the
63. 3:01environment and we need to demystify the
64. 3:03Family Planning reputation as an
65. 3:06interventionist tool of government but
66. 3:08rather we need to promote it as a set of
67. 3:10policies and include education training
68. 3:14and especially information to different
69. 3:17groups it is with these ideas that the
70. 3:22organizers of this series bring us
71. 3:24together to start the public debate
72. 3:27again about these issu issues dealing
73. 3:30with population because indeed the
74. 3:33danger is that if the public debate is
75. 3:36not well informed extremist positions
76. 3:39are likely to take the for and it is in
77. 3:43that spirit that we are very happy that
78. 3:46today we have with us uh excuse me
79. 3:50Professor Tim Dyson from the London
80. 3:52School of economics in
81. 3:54London and Michelle Garen from the
82. 3:57pastor Institute in Paris who who will
83. 4:00discuss the first issue uh the global
84. 4:03demographic transition uh the
85. 4:06consequences and implications for
86. 4:09development if there's one thing that
87. 4:11struck me in reading about Professor
88. 4:14Dyson's work it is that he refuses to be
89. 4:18a single isue man as you will hear
90. 4:21probably in his presentation this
91. 4:23afternoon he has a holistic approach and
92. 4:26if he convinces it is because he places
93. 4:29the popular a issues squarely but always
94. 4:32in the context of other issues as well
95. 4:35and therefore we're particularly happy
96. 4:37that he is with us today and that he is
97. 4:39opening this series of lecture and I
98. 4:41would like to therefore give the floor
99. 4:43to you Professor
100. 4:48[Applause]
101. 4:52Dyson thank thank you very
102. 4:55much um this is a big subject and I
103. 4:59can't possibly cover everything that I
104. 5:01would want to so I ask you to bear that
105. 5:03in
106. 5:05mind um I am working on the demographic
107. 5:09transition um and I thought it was a
108. 5:13good subject to pick also at the start
109. 5:16of this lecture series because most um
110. 5:20population um issues or uh questions uh
111. 5:25can be related to the demographic
112. 5:27transition the phenomena of the
113. 5:28demographic transition
114. 5:31I happen to believe that the demographic
115. 5:34transition uh is perhaps the most
116. 5:37important single dimension of
117. 5:39development that there
118. 5:41is uh and it's a phenomena which began
119. 5:47here here in the sense of in the
120. 5:50countries of Northwestern
121. 5:53Europe and to look at the beginning of
122. 5:55this terribly important phenomena we
123. 5:58really have to go back to to the 18th
124. 6:02century uh although the phenomena began
125. 6:06in this part of the world at about that
126. 6:08time it has subsequently gone on to
127. 6:11affect all human populations everywhere
128. 6:14to differing
129. 6:16degrees however although some aspects of
130. 6:21uh development deriving initially from
131. 6:24the enlightenment if you like have
132. 6:27received a great deal of attention I'm
133. 6:29thinking in particular of the phenomena
134. 6:31of modern economic growth as uh
135. 6:34described by Simon Kuts the demographic
136. 6:38transition uh is something that about
137. 6:41which not many people have much
138. 6:43knowledge indeed Michelle and I were
139. 6:45talking earlier there's only one book
140. 6:49titled the demographic transition and we
141. 6:51both agree there should be at least
142. 6:5410 okay now I hope this is all going to
143. 6:57work the machinery
144. 7:02no it's not am I do I double click
145. 7:10or yeah you done it you double click did
146. 7:15you okay yeah come can you go
147. 7:28back
148. 7:51okay now I if I double right cck go down
149. 7:54if I double right
150. 7:58click
151. 8:03can I double
152. 8:09WR that's that's that's the one I want
153. 8:11yeah that's what I want now the next one
154. 8:13okay um okay thank you that's great okay
155. 8:18I I that'll work fine I'm sure okay so
156. 8:22this is he said a stylized version of
157. 8:24what I'm going to talk about and I have
158. 8:26to I have to emphasize that it is a uh a
159. 8:29highly stylized version of the
160. 8:31demographic
161. 8:33transition the demographic transition uh
162. 8:35involves the movement of a society from
163. 8:38circumstances of high and roughly equal
164. 8:41death and birth rates to circumstances
165. 8:44of low and roughly equal birth and death
166. 8:48rates uh so on the left hand side of
167. 8:51that diagram I will try and use
168. 8:54this there we go yeah there we go
169. 8:57there's the beginning of the transition
170. 8:58there I you can