Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here on Tuesday urged the religious and social leaders to take up the cause of population stabilization on their agenda.

“Medical science can provide the technical solution to facilitate the processes (of population control) but the initiative has to come from behavioural side where the people’s representatives and religious and social leaders can play an extremely important role in influencing public opinion and bring about effective behaviour change,” said Adad.He was speaking at the first Conference of the Asian Population Association, an association of population scientists for scientific study of the population issues in Asia.

He added that unless the rapid growth of population is contained, it will be difficult to ensure quality education, healthcare, food, housing, clean drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and a healthy environment for all. Global funding for family planning has fallen from 55% in 1995 to 5% in 2005. Four billion people living in Asia and account for over 60 percent of the world’s population.