Hans Schöneberger thinks that all progress achieved in rural development will be eaten up by population growth. The issue put massive pressure on natural resources and was the source of substantial conflict. The political dialogue with the partner countries should make it an agenda item. Everyone considered population growth a crosscutting issue. In reality though, it was not taken into account at all.

Schöneberger works with the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources project in Tanzania.

About the Most Pressing Issue Statements

At 2017 SNRD Africa conference participants were asked what they viewed as the greatest challenge for rural development currently, what development cooperation, in general, could do about it and, more specifically, which actions SNRD should take.