A Bangladeshi production team, trained by the BBC World Service Trust, teamed up with BBC World News to produce the latest edition of the flagship BBC discussion programme The World Debate.
The programme on global population growth posed the central question "Are there too many people in the world?"
The debate took place in the 17th century Lalbagh Fort in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and will be aired on BBC World News on Sunday 26 April 2009, and later on satellite station Channel i.
"Bangladesh has been at the forefront of the debate over global population, so there's no better location to hold this event," said Allan Freedman, BBC World Service Trust Country Director.
Panellists from four continents took part in the discussion, presented by the BBC's Zeinab Badawi.
Among the issues tackled were: sustainable growth, shrinking and ageing populations, population control, the importance of education and health in the natural reduction of fertility rates and population imbalances around the globe.
"Bangladesh has been at the forefront of the debate over global population, so there's no better location to hold this event,"
Allan Freedman, Country Director, Bangladesh
Rosamund McDougall, of the Optimum Population Trust favoured an overall reduction in global population, saying: "we are entering a period of dangerous climate change and of rapid depletion of resources, [the world] is already overpopulated."
But Matthew Connelly, Professor at Columbia University, New York argued that this missed the point, arguing: "There's too much poverty in the world, there's too much poor health. We're having too big an impact on the planet, but you can't make these problems go away just by making people go away ... It's really about the kind of lives people are living."
Although projected figures were widely quoted - it is predicted that there will be an additional 1 billion people in Africa by 2050 - most agreed it was not simply a numbers game.
As Wang Shuo, Managing Editor of Beijing-based Caijing magazine observed, "how many people is too many people."
Eliya Zulu, Director of Research at the African Population and Health Research Centre in Nairobi agreed that it was "not just about numbers", but that "every government has to look at its population, look at its capacity to provide for that population, and make decisions [based on that]."
"The evidence shows that once you empower women, once they realise that the decision on how many children to have and when to have them is their own, the end result is that fertility will continue to go down," he added.
Matthew Connelly agreed, arguing that "when people have choices in their lives, it has an enormous impact" and Dr. A. K. M. Nurun Nabi, Project Director of the Department Of Population Sciences at the University of Dhaka also concluded that "development, education and reduction" were closely connected.
Developing English language media in Bangladesh
The BBC World Service Trust is part of a project called English in Action, working to improve the English language skills of 25 million people in Bangladesh.
Students and teachers will benefit from the introduction of new teaching methods, materials and technology.
The BBC World Service Trust, working with BBC Learning English, will provide access to learning materials through TV, mobiles and the internet. We will also support Bangladeshi media to produce programmes that give people the opportunity to hear English in context.
Our research shows that over 70% of Bangladeshis want to learn English, with over 80% believing it will help them earn more money. A staggering 96% want their children to learn English.
This edition of The World Debate is one of the many programmes we will be producing over the next eight years. It gave Bangladesh an international platform to take part in a discussion of global significance. Through working closely with local crews it also helped to meet the demand from the Bangladesh audience for locally relevant programming in English.
