Population Growth and Control in Africa
The
problem of population growth and control in Africa is somewhat
complicated. While there are too many people in some areas of the
continent, there are too few in others. To a large extent, this
peculiarity has been a function of such factors as the slave trade,
ethnic wars, migratory movements and indiscriminate balkanisation of
Africa by colonial powers.
As
a result, Africa displays the unique feature of being overpopulated and
under-populated concurrently. In some areas, the choice is between
increased starvation and effective population control. In others, it is
between positive population increase and increased starvation. In some
cases, population control appears to be detrimental to economic
growth. In others, population control is crucial to economic growth.
Granted, a generalised treatment of the dynamics of population growth
and control in African cannot but belie the inherent divergences.
African giant
Various
“guesstimates” suggest that the total population figure for Africa is
now around 1 billion. It appears that while the continent covers 25% of
the world's land area, it has only about 15% of its population. In
effect, Africa is actually under-populated relative to such other
continents as Europe and Asia. Africa has a population density of only
33%, relative to 70% for Europe and 87% for Asia.
However,
Africa has a relatively high population growth rate; something in the
range of 4.8% per annum in 2013, up from 3.4% in 2011, according to the
International Planned Parenthood Federation. If current demographic
trends persist, it is projected that the African population will reach
1.4 billion by 2025. According to UNICEF, by 2050, it is projected that
one out of every three children born in the world will be an African.
That provides amazing food for thought.
The
highest increase in new births in the world between now and 2050 is
expected to occur in Nigeria. By 2050, Nigeria's population is
projected by the United Nations to be 389 million, rivalling that of the
United States at 403 million. By the end of the century, the U.N.
projects that Nigeria's population would be between 900 million and 1
billion, nearing that of China which would by then be the second most
populous country in the world after India. The reason for this is
because while Nigeria's population would continue to grow geometrically,
China's population is expected to begin to shrink by 2030.
Today,
Africa has the youngest population in the world. 200 million Africans
are between 15 and 24 years old. This young population is expected to
more than double by 2050, when as many as 800 million Africans are
expected to be between the ages of 25 and 59. This is expected to
provoke a dramatic shift in the working population of the world. Today,
China has the advantage of having the largest labour force worldwide.
But soon, China will be replaced by Africa. According to these
projections, by 2050, one out of every four workers in the world is
likely to be an African. This African labour force would be young and
relatively cheap. Therefore, it is to be expected that multinational
companies of the West looking for cheap labour would be inclined to move
their businesses to Africa, instead of East Asia.
Blessing or curse?
This
means Africa's population boom offers great opportunities for Africa's
future economic transformation. This can happen, provided Africa's
human capital is harnessed productively, and channelled towards
appropriate sectors of the economy, in response to changes in the
international economic system. However, at the same time, Africa's
population boom poses grave threats to the region's political stability
and social cohesion if sufficient economic and employment opportunities
remain unavailable for expected newcomers.
For
this reason, in the short-term, unchecked population growth in many an
African country has important implications for social and economic
development. It cannot be justified on the simplistic basis of the need
to promote rapid industrialisation through the creation of economies of
scale. These remain essentially a function of the “size” of the
market; that is, of the effective domestic demand. Gains in “size” are
more readily achieved by increasing income per head than by increasing
the number of impoverished peasants. For the time-being, this should be
sought primarily through regional integration and international trade
rather than by population growth.
What
a mushrooming population means in Africa in the short-term is that the
economies must run faster merely in order to stand still; with an
increase in total output providing only the meagre same as opposed to
improved living standards. Moreover, this portends dire ramifications
for urbanisation and employment patterns and, overall, for a manageable
rate of social change. In many African countries, sustained population
growth at the present rate cannot possibly be absorbed in the small,
albeit expanding, segment of modern or modernising industries which, as a
matter of fact, tend to be basically capital-intensive. Since
fertility remains generally high while infant mortality rates appear to
be declining gradually, the number of children is on the increase, with a
concomitant drop in the proportion of the adult and economically
productive population.
With
over 400 million Africans currently under the age of 15, this means a
large proportion of the national income in African countries is devoted
to feeding, clothing and housing “non-producers,” with a consequent
proportionately less availability of funds for investment.
Tentative
judgment, based on a number of mortality rate information available
also leads to the conclusion that life-expectancy in Africa is only 46
years. This compares unfavourably with life-expectancy in the developed
market-economy countries, which is now close to, or above, 80 years.
The Project Director, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Prof.
Abdulsalam Nasidi, says Nigeria's life-expectancy is the lowest in West
Africa. However, this is highly debateable; especially as he goes on to
say Nigeria's life-expectancy is 47 years.
Kenyan example
The
phenomenon of rapid population growth in Africa is probably at its most
acute in East Africa. This region has one of the highest population
growth-rates in the world. It is projected, for example, that Kenya's
population will increase from the current 43 million to over 100 million
by 2050.
In
Kenya, 43 per cent of the population is below 15 years. This large
percentage has to be supported by the working class. This puts a heavy
burden on the workers and leaves them with little room for savings. At
the same time, it offers the prospect of future demographic dividends
for Kenya as a result of the process whereby rapid economic growth is
achieved through a decline in mortality and fertility rates, leading to
dramatic changes in the country's age structure. This has been the
experience of such Asian “tigers” as Indonesia, South Korea and
Thailand.
For
this reason, it is hardly surprising that the Kenyan government has
embarked on an official programme aimed at curbing population growth,
with emphasis on education and voluntary methods. Through widespread
publicity campaigns, the programme emphasises the health benefits to
both mother and child from the spacing of children, and the relationship
between family size and general quality of life. This link between
living standards and population growth is hammered home in schools,
training centres and by community development sources.
Family planning
Neither
is such effort limited to Kenya. “Ginormous” African countries like
Nigeria, with a huge population of 170 million; and Gambia, three-fifths
of whose population of 1.8 million is under 24, have also displayed an
upsurge of interest in family planning; and understandably so.
According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, many
African governments have now officially established family planning
programmes, and others either provide some services or support
organisations or individual doctors that run such programmes.
Family-planning
programmes have tended to be constrained by lack of facilities for
distributing birth-control information, and to bump against the obstacle
of ethno-cultural traditions and considerations which encourage large
families. The desire for large families is enhanced by the perceived
economic value of children, the social security they provide parents
against old age, and the insurance they are believed to provide against
the pervasive feature of early child mortality. There is also the issue
of parental prestige in having a large family. Thus, many local
leaders are prone to regard birth control measures with disfavour and
suspicion; a plot to castrate and weaken the country; a capitalist
conspiracy perhaps emanating from the one and only CIA.
In
any case, birth control measures imposed “from above” by government
authorities and family planning associations have had limited impact on
overall population growth in Africa. Indeed, judging from the
experience of western societies, the most effective motivation for birth
control rests on individual desire for self-improvement. In Africa,
this can only be generated by a fundamental transformation of the
society and its modes of thought through economic development. The
harsh reality is that, despite family-planning initiatives, the only
effective means of population “control” has been death by starvation or
famine. In recent years, some of the poorest nations have experienced
food shortages, which increased the death-rates and consequently slowed
population growth.
Under-population
There
is yet another side to the population coin in Africa. There, the issue
appears to be, not over-population but, under-population. In the vast
territory which includes Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Central
African Republic, Chad and Togo, an area six times the size of France,
has only 77 million people to France's 63 million. In such countries,
the objective of some family-planning programmes has been essentially
that of spacing births rather than discouraging them. Even in those
areas where over-population is the issue, the problems of positive
population control have ensured that planning often focuses on the
effects on mothers and babies of large families, and of children born in
rapid succession.
In
the final analysis, the issue in Africa is really neither population
growth nor its control. Rather, it is economic development.
“Over-population” is not a condition that is intimately related to
numbers in the abstract, without regard to land fertility and technical
and economic development. Otherwise, Africa would definitely not
qualify as over-populated. Neither can the continent really be
considered as “under-populated” since there is very little evidence that
an absolute lack of manpower is holding up development anywhere.
Most
of the ills attributed to population growth in Africa would disappear
with reasonable rates of economic development. As observed, economic
development itself is perhaps the one reliable means to population
control. By itself, the problem of density is one of the least crucial
of demographic problems. Africa's population is not too large in
relation to land area, but to reproducible capital, research and
educational facilities, the entrepreneurial class, leadership and the
available channels of economic diffusion.
Femi Aribisala, a Financial Nigeria magazine columnist and Chairman of the Editorial Board, was the Special Adviser to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi as Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He holds a PhD in International Relations from Oxford University. He also writes a popular column on the Christian faith in one of Nigeria's newspapers.
Read more: Population Growth and Control in Africa | Stratfor
Source: Stratfor
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