Exploding Birthrate Viewed as Threat : Population: Gains in improving quality of life could be swept away, U.N. official fears.

The world’s population is growing by three people every second, and unless this is curbed most gains so far achieved in improving the quality of life could be swept away, the U.N. Population Fund said today.

Nafis Sadik, executive director of the fund, said progress in reducing birthrates has been slower than expected and the world’s population, earlier expected to stabilize at 10.2 billion by the end of the next century, could head toward 14 billion people.

Sadik said in a speech at a media and economic seminar in Manila that world population, now 5.25 billion, is growing by around 250,000 daily. Between 90 million and 100 million people will be added every year during the 1990s, she said.

Over the decade, a billion people--a whole extra China--will be added, she said. In Asia, today’s 3.1 billion people will become 3.7 billion by the end of the century, she added.

“By and large, the biggest increases will happen in the poorest countries--those least equipped to meet the needs of the new arrivals and invest in their future,” Sadik said.

“The 1990s will see faster increases in human numbers than any decade in history. The 1990s will be a decisive decade. All that Asian countries have struggled to achieve could be swept away,” she said.

Sadik told the One Asia Assembly that poverty and rapid population growth in rural areas have combined to weaken the pace of development, dimming prospects for increased employment and threatening food supply.

Sadik said a key factor in the population problem was the role given to women. She said improvements in women’s status, their access to education, health and the means of family planning are the best and quickest way to reduce population growth rates.