Growth of African cities beginning to slow

One of the common perceptions about Africa is that the cities are growing out of control. People flee the rural areas because there are more jobs in the city. But recent research is indicating that this growth is starting to slow down, because of a lack of jobs in the urban areas.

From Reuters Alert Net writer Laurie Goering attended a presentation covering the new data.

Contrary to expectations, countries like Ivory Coast, Mali, Zambia and Central African Republic have seen periods in the last 20 years when more city dwellers have moved to rural areas than vice versa, said Deborah Potts, a Kings College London demographer who looks at urbanisation trends in sub-Saharan Africa.

In many parts of the region, “you have tremendous counter-movements out of the cities back to rural areas… because people are finding it really hard to find livelihoods that will sustain them in the cities,” she said during a presentation at the Chatham House think tank in London.

This outwards migration has slowed the expected rate of population growth in some African cities such as Lagos, Potts said. That could have important implications for urban planners and for national preparations to deal with climate change.

The lack of jobs in African cities may also challenge widely held assumptions that rural families hit by increasingly extreme weather will be able to adapt by moving to cities or sending family members to work there.

Farmers affected by worsening droughts may move to towns or cities, Potts said, but “there are no livelihood activities for them and if there are no such activities, they will just be refugees. That’s a different kind of urbanisation.”

In fact, faced with food shortages and weather disasters like flooding, African city dwellers may actually move - temporarily or permanently - to rural areas to try to cope, said Deborah Sporton, an Africa expert and human geography lecturer at Britain’s University of Sheffield.

Video: Kenya's growing population

From Al Jazeera, a the world reaches 7 billion people, a look at how Kenya tries to deal with their exploding population.

World population to reach Seven Billion in October

The world will hit a milestone this October as the total population of our planet will reach 7 billion for the first time. If population trends continue, the world will reach 8 billion by the year 2025. This presents an enormous challenge for us all. Economies and food supplies must continue to increase in order to fulfill the ever growing need.

From the Inter Press Service, UN beat writer Talif Deen takes a look at some of the trends behind the ever expanding population.

The world's five most populous countries are China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion), the United States (310.2 million), Indonesia (242.9 million) and Brazil (201.1 million).

A new study titled "Africa's Demographic Multiplication", released last month and commissioned by the Washington-based Globalist Research Center, points out that Africa's population has more than tripled during the second half of the 20th century, growing from 230 million to 811 million.

As a result, Africa has become more populous than Europe. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country at 158 million, is expected to grow to 730 million by century's end, making it larger than Europe's projected population of 675 million.

Nigeria is currently the only African country with a population exceeding 100 million.

But 10 other countries in the African continent are expected to join that club before the close of the century: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Jose Miguel Guzman, chief of the UNFPA's Population and Development Branch, told IPS that globally, the population growth rate is not as high as it has been in the past.

Fertility decline in most countries of the world has contributed to a decline in population growth rates.

"But if we take into consideration least developed countries (LDCs) or most of the sub-Saharan countries, the situation is quite different," Guzman said.

In most of these countries, he said, fertility is still high, and the rate of growth is also high.

In some cases, it is as high as three percent, which implies that the population in these areas will double in about 20 to 25 years.

The date for the eight billion population milestone is projected now to be 2025, he predicted.

Authorities say Nigerian population is growing too fast

From IRIN, authorities say that the population in Niger is growing too fast.

The population of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is growing at an unsustainable rate, according to the authorities and civil society groups.

If current growth rates of 3.3 percent per year remain unchanged, by 2050 Niger’s population will have reached 50 million. The current population is 15.2 million - and even at this level there is widespread malnourishment.

It has been nearly 25 years since Niger identified population control as a priority in its fight against poverty, said senior Ministry of Social Development and Population official Barra Bahari. But convincing people to have fewer children by marrying later and using contraception is not an easy task.

“This is a humanitarian emergency. We have no future without birth control,” said Idé Djermakoyé, president of a local NGO involved in family planning, the Nigerien Organization for the Development of Human Potential (ONDPH). “The government cannot cope. The population is poor, the health system is weak and there is no land for farming. We are already unable to feed and educate our population.”

National statistics are grim. Nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than a dollar a day. A woman dies every two hours while giving birth. Nearly one child in five dies before the age of five. Almost one in three does not attend primary school.

The economy would have to grow at a rate of 7 percent a year to meet people’s basic needs, according to Najim Mohammed, coordinator of the Permanent Secretariat of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, a government body. In 2009, growth was negative, he said. The government says average annual growth in the last decade has been just 3.1 percent.

A recent government study on the impact of population growth notes that by 2015, if the trend remains unchanged, thousands more classrooms, teachers, and health personnel will be required. In general, each active member of society will have to look after at least two inactive ones. And the already deficient food production will be even less adequate.

Promoting contraception

In the maternity ward of Diffa’s health centre, Mamane Fati is holding her newborn daughter, her ninth child. “The first born could not even stand when I had a second one,” she said. Her sister then told her about contraception. “Now, I have understood that we have to put some space between births. I try to leave three years between each of them.”

The fact that this is Fati’s ninth child is hardly exceptional. The average Nigerien woman gives birth seven times in her life, the highest number in the world.

What may be noteworthy is that Fati, now 38, was 21 when she had her first child. That is almost old in a country where half of all females have their first child at 15-16, according to a 2006 government demography and health survey.

By promoting education for all, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) hopes to reduce instances of early marriage. “Education could most often break the cycle of early marriage”, said UNFPA’s deputy in Niamey, Saidou Kabore. “Girls will not marry while studying. And then, the more a woman is educated, the fewer children she will generally have.”

By 2015, the country aims to reduce the proportion of early marriages from 60 to 40 percent and the number of children per women to five. Some 18 percent of its sexually active population should be using contraception by then.

Family planning and contraception are among the topics discussed with every woman giving birth in Diffa’s maternity unit. “We stress that it is important for their health and that of the child to space births,” explained the head of the maternity unit, Mariama Daouami.

In the last nine years, Daouami said, the contraception message seems to have had more resonance in the cities. “In the countryside, it is another story. Most often women say they will have to ask their husband. And then, there is the religious factor. They think that spacing birth is defying Islam.”

She added that when a man has several wives, wives will often compete to have the most children, because this will reflect on their status in the family and on their inheritance share.

Key targets: Men and religion

Organizations such as UNFPA have understood that without the sanction of men and religion, change is unlikely.

“We used to only target women, but we cannot promote family planning without involving men,” said UNFPA’s Kabore. “It is men who decide when it comes to contraception, or delivering at the health centre. This is related to the problem of women’s status in the society.”

In 2004, UNFPA started engaging men in family planning by opening a dozen “husbands’ schools” in central Niger. Married men were invited to meet twice a month to discuss reproductive health. Kabore said it led husbands to become more involved with health and family matters. This year, 136 such “schools” have been established.

Hassan Ardo Ido has 12 children under 21. He describes it as a heavy burden but also explains: “We think that if you have five children who can fetch wood, well, that will help the family.” This is one of the ideas that UNFPA is trying to fight against by stressing that children are expensive to raise, said Kabore. “It is believed to be a security net, but several examples show that it is an insecurity net.”

The fact that children have tended to die more frequently at a very young age may also explain the urge to have a large family. “People have to understand that it is no longer necessary to have five children to ensure two survive,” said Djermakoyé, from ONDPH. “Many more children live now that we have relatively better access to health care and vaccination.”

Working closely with traditional chiefs and religious associations has also become a priority. Islam is not against family planning, said Kabore. Citing Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, he noted: “There are Muslim countries where family planning has worked very well.”

Marabout Gabo Sabou preaches about family planning to his fellow marabouts. “The Koran says we cannot prevent births. We don’t contradict this, but we say that the size of the family needs to be on a par with resources. The Koran never said you should make children regardless of your ability to look after them.”

Even though his sermons are not always warmly received, he says his peers are now much more responsive than they were when he started two decades ago. “Now people listen and we can discuss. There was not even a discussion before, just a fight.”

“We are starting to see the impact of our work, but it is very slow,” said the Population Ministry’s Bahari, noting that the use of contraception has increased from 5 percent in 2006 to over 13 percent. “Contraception was a taboo subject when I started in 1990. This is no longer the case. Condoms are being shown on TV and people are not shocked.”

Video: US Bush era effects on African population

From the Real News Network, how US Bush era policies affected African population growth.

Africa's one billionth child

Sometime in the year 2010, the one billionth African will be born. We won't know where or when due to spotty census figures but the continent will make the mark, and the population will continue to increase.

A story in the Guardian today looks atwhat is come for that one billionth child. The story looks at the rapid population growth for the continent and the challenges it entails. Writer David Smith gives us the analysis.

By 2050, the population is projected to almost double, to 1.9 billion. Pessimists predict a human tide that will put an unbearable burden on food, jobs, schools, housing and healthcare. Yet optimists sense an opportunity to follow billion-strong China and India in pursuing economic growth.

"It's not a problem," said Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born British entrepreneur. "Africa is underpopulated. We have 20% of the world's landmass and 13% of its population. We have a bulge of young people and that brings to the marketplace a huge workforce, whereas Europe's population is ageing. We need to focus on education and training."

Africans born today are likely to live not in a village but in a "mega-city" since the continent's rate of urbanisation is the fastest the world has yet seen. Deaths from smoking or car crashes will be a factor as much as the more familiar health issues of malnutrition, malaria and Aids. These citizens will also be vulnerable to droughts, floods and desertification caused by climate change.

But the children of 2009 will also have opportunities undreamed of by their ancestors. They will almost certainly own a mobile phone, or perhaps two, and eventually get regular internet access. They may be better off – Africa has the fastest economic growth this year outside China and India. They will have tentative grounds to hope for better governance and fewer wars.

If, that is, they can stay alive beyond infancy. Richmond Tiemoko, population and development adviser for the Africa regional office of the UN population fund (UNFPA), said: "The first challenge for the baby … is to survive because, although it's declining, child mortality is still high. For the young people coming, the challenge is to get a good education so they are fully incorporated in modern society. That depends on government investment in them and their mother, and also in health services to ensure they survive and are healthy."

Africa's population has doubled in the past 27 years, with Nigeria's and Uganda's numbers climbing the fastest. Whereas in 1950 there were two Europeans for every African, by 2050 there will be two Africans for every European. Even China's projected population of 1.4 billion in 40 years will be shrinking, while India will be adding only 3 million a year to its 1.6 billion people. Women in Africa still bear more children than in other regions. The US-based Population Reference Bureau reported this year that, while the average woman worldwide has 2.6 children, in sub-Saharan Africa the figure is 5.3. The world's highest fertility rate is in Niger, where women have on average 7.4 children.

Africa's population continues to rise because of low life expectancy, Tiemoko explained. "Traditionally in all societies, when mortality is high, fertility tends to be high. When people are dying the population tries to offset that by having more children to make sure the survival rate is acceptable. Mortality has largely declined on the continent but is still high."

Whereas globally 62% of married women of childbearing age use contraception, in Africa the figure is 28%.

A reason for the desire for big families in Africa

Population growth in Africa seems to be a big topic today. This morning we had a couple of stories about how population booms can make resources even more scarce. Another story that we linked to talked about how US policy may have contributed to the population boom.

What is hard for us westerners to understand is why big families are so desired by the men in Africa, especially with all effort it takes to feed all the children. Often big families are not a series of mistakes but is what the parents want and society pressures for the same.

From All Africa, we have found a pretty good explanation on some African people want a lot of children. Writer Paul Ohia links the desire of a big family to the big family farms.

In rural agriculture and animal rearing, the family that has the highest number of off-spring fare better during the farming period because the number of workers increases. It should be noted here that it was not traditional to employ permanent hands by families to do the cultivation an herds keeping. Though a family can hire paid labourers from time to time, the usual permanent workers are the members of the family.

Polygamy in Africa can best be understood in this light because men being the natural inheritors of family farms and herds tend to marry as many wives as their resources can allow them in order to have many workers. They are not slaves in any way because they benefit from the proceeds of their works as their daily nourishments come thereof.

In a nutshell, majority of the cattle herdsmen that traversed your locality with their herds were not employed workers but children or owners of the cattle though the situation are changing nowadays. The workers you saw in the large acres of farmland owned by a man in your neighbourhood are mostly his wives and children.

Times have changed and many Africans have become educated enough to leave rural farming to embrace white collar jobs but the allure of having as many children as possible remains in their subconscious. Of course, an average African would be having quarrels with his or her mother in-law if the person announces that she/he wants to have only one child or just two children.

This tradition led to population boom and in a society where social security does not exist, most of the children who were not lucky enough to be born by affluent parents suffer lots of setbacks. In several cases when one or two of the parents becomes deceased then they are left at the mercy of relatives. Very unlucky ones do not find relatives to take care of them and that is the birth of African street children.

Study reveals that the continent is producing a child every second, and by 2050 its population will reach 2 billion. Due to the aforementioned social pressure, African women bear 5.3 children each on average, compared with 2.1 in the United States, says the Population Reference Bureau, a demographic research centre in Washington.

Video: the population boom in Africa

This video from McClatchy Newspapers takes a look at the population boom in Africa. The video profiles a couple of families that have too many children, and shows the struggle to provide for them when they can't even provide for themselves. Reporter Shashank Bengali narrates the story.

A real doom and gloom report on population growth

The Green Revolution of the 1960s started by Dr. Norman Bourlag stopped any talk of population growth. But the prospect of climate change has many scholars thinking about population again.

A conference of experts conclude that the world's population could grow to 11 billion by 2050, and that would make life unsustainable on Earth. The conference warns that it could doom entire nations to poverty, and there would be no way to feed everyone. The experts say that family planning and contraceptive programs need to be put in place.

From Yahoo News, this AFP story from Marlowe Hood gives us more on what is contained in the report.

The researchers said that with one and a half million more humans climbing aboard the planet every week, a recipe is looming for ecological overload, famine and broken states.

"Continued rapid population growth in many of the least developed countries could lead to hunger, a failure of education and conflict," said Malcolm Potts at the University of California in Berkeley, which hosted the conference in February.

The papers, authored by 42 specialists in environmental science, economics and demography, are published by the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.

"There is no doubt that the current rate of human population growth is unsustainable," summarised Roger Short, a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

"The inexorable increase in human numbers is exhausting conventional energy supplies, accelerating environmental pollution and global warming and providing an increasing number of failed states where civil unrest prevails."

Ninety-eight percent of the expected population growth will occur in developing countries, especially in Africa, where numbers are set to double to almost two billion by 2050.

"How Niger is going to feed a population growing from 11 million today to 50 million in 2050 in a semi-arid country that may be facing adverse climate (change) is unclear," said Adair Turner, a member of Britain's House of Lords.

Population growth could also put MDGs out of reach

The Millennium Development Goals are facing another setback, population rates rising too fast. The MGDs already suffered a set back from the global economic recession, but experts fear population growth that is faster than expected could put the goals out of reach.

From this IPS story, reporter Thalif Deen examines what effect population has on the MGDs.

The goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 could be jeopardised by soaring population growth, mostly in the developing world.

World population is expected to reach seven billion by 2011, a year earlier than expected, according to the latest figures released by the Population Research Bureau last week.

"The population will hit seven billion in the second half of 2011," predicts Jose Miguel Guzman, chief of the Population and Development Branch at the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Since 1975, he said, world population has been increasing by about a billion every 12 years.

"Given that the six billion mark was reached in 1999, the attainment of seven billion seems to be more or less on track," Guzman told IPS.

Of the growth between 1999 and 2011, he said, 95 percent is in the developing world.

Asked how the rise in population growth will impact on developing nations reaching their MDGs by 2015, Guzman said that many developing, and particularly the least developed countries (LDCs), will face a continuous increase in the demand for services, specifically in education and health.

That means there will be an increasing need for social investment just to catch up with population growth, giving fewer opportunities to increase the quality of services, which is needed to generate the changes requested to attain the MDGs, he added.

The MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development.