Africa’s population stood at 1.34 billion in 2020, reached 1.4 billion in 2022, and is projected to increase to 2.50 billion by the end of 2050, less than 30 years from now. Violence, protests and different sorts of social and economic dissatisfaction have been expressed publicly in different countries of the African continent mainly as a result of increasing unemployment, which is a consequence of overpopulation.
There cannot be one single process for slowing down Africa’s rapid population growth. Rather, a set of processes and strategies need to be fashioned out for consideration and implementation. The June 2022 edition of Africa Supreme magazine listed four direct sources that led to rapid population growth in Africa. The earlier list is included in the following direct sources of rapid population growth in Africa.
- High fertility In marriages
- Teenage pregnancies
- Polygamous marriages
- Divorce and remarriages
- Large rural population
The above five sources are principally the sources that need to be tackled and solved if ever the continent were to be able to put the brakes on its galloping population.
High fertility in marriages
More children used to be the pride of families in Sub-Saharan Africa. Parents with six or seven children, even ten children could hold their heads high for high achievement. This was the cultural practice not too long ago. The practice was more prevalent in the farming communities where more children were needed as farm hands for the family.
The habit of having more children in the family gives way to smaller families. As indicated in the June edition of this magazine, the average fertility rate on the continent is now 4.2 and is projected to decline further to 3.0 by 2050
The decline in the number of children required in families comes as a result of the growth of education: kindergarten, primary and secondary education up to skill training institutions, and up to tertiary education in many cases.
A second reason for the decline in the number of children required in families is the need for improved standard of living of families. In current times, a radio, TV, mobile phone, simple linoleum for floor covering and change of clothing for different occasions become a necessity.
A third reason is the increasing general hardship in living on the continent. Life is becoming increasingly expensive because of low level production and consequent low salaries and low income in many occupations on the continent.
Teenage pregnancies
Teenage pregnancy has become a matter of great concern in the countries of the continent. Girls at early ages of 13 and 14 could become pregnant, deliver their children and become a burden on their parents. By age 16, a female child could be a mother of two children.
A reason for the teenage phenomenon is the lack of vision for their future at that early age. The girls involved live for the moment. The trouble is that they are generally enticed by older boys at ages 16 to 20, who themselves are mostly dropouts from school, apprentice mechanics and others just beginning to learn a trade and who equally have no vision of their own future.
In some areas of the continent, child marriage is a cultural aspect of life. Young girls from age 11 onwards could be married off to older men; making it impossible for such children to enjoy their childhood. Culture and lack of effective parental care are mostly the causes of teenage pregnancies.
Polygamous marriages
Where a man has three wives, a competition for children is set up between the wives. If the elder wife has three children, each of the remaining two wives also wants three children. The husband hence has nine children to be responsible for. If the elder wife has four children, the number of children in the family could reach twelve.
Divorce and remarriages
Divorce and remarriage situations are almost like polygamous situations. Divorce may occur between a man and wife who have three children. The man may remarry and obtain four more children by his new wife. The man now has seven children. If the woman also remarries and obtains three more children in the new marriage, she now has six children; three children in common with the first husband.
Remarriages keep multiplying the population of children in a nation. The situation is different in stable nuclear marriages where the couple could plan their lives and the number of children they desired.
Large rural population
Fertility is much higher in the rural areas than in the urban areas. Life generally runs on a slower pace in the rural areas than in the towns and cities. The number of children per family in the towns and cities could be two or three children while it could be four, five or six children in the rural areas. It is also mostly in the rural areas that more teenage pregnancies occur.
Processes for slowing down population growth
Africa’s growing population will make more demands for education, jobs, housing, healthcare and many other infrastructural facilities in the face of dire the financial situations facing the continent's countries. The situation is ominous and needs serious consideration. It will therefore be important to consider and implement selected processes that will help slow down the continent’s population growth within the next twenty years, well before the year 2050
Reducing high fertility in marriages
As a solution to their high population growth rate, China adopted the policy of one child per family for a period of 36 years beginning from the year 1980 up to 2016. Families with physically or mentally challenged child were allowed to have two children. From 2016, all families were permitted to have two children. Five years later in 2021, the changed policy of two children per family was relaxed to allow families to have three children.
The population of China in 1970 was 818.3 million. In 1980 when the implementation of the one child per family policy started, the population had increased to 969 million; that is an addition of 151million people over the population in 1970 in just ten years. In 2016, that is 36 years later when the one child policy was changed, the population of the country had reached 1,379 billion, that is, 410 million additional people over the 1980 figure.
Assuming the same fertility and mortality rates in the period 1970-1980, the population of China could have more than doubled by 2016; China’s population could have reached 2.0 billion in 2016, an addition of nearly 1 billion people if the country had not adopted the one child per family policy. The population reduction to the figure of 1,379 billion in 36 years was achieved despite the reluctance of many rural families to conform to the one child per family policy.
China’s one child policy was backed by supply of contraceptive methods, financial incentives and employment opportunities for families that complied with the policy; while some level of punishment was exacted on families failing to comply with the policy.
Eliminating teenage pregnancies
Teenage pregnancies mostly occur because of lack of vision of the future for young girls who generally do not continue their education after age 12 or 13, and for the young adult males involved in this early child bearing phenomenon, as already indicated. As also indicated earlier, teenage pregnancies occur in areas of the continent where child marriage constitutes a cultural aspect of life.
Three processes could be recommended in this case. The first is to keep children in school from kindergarten till completion of secondary school education. Experiences show that extremely few pregnancies occur among girls in secondary school education; meaning also that young boys in secondary school are equally conscious of issues on sexual immorality at this stage of life. Keeping children in school till age 18 is a certain way for reducing the teenage pregnancy phenomenon.
The second process in the issue is to get families, churches and mosques involved in curbing the teenage pregnancy menace. The Muslim communities are however, hardly affected by the teenage pregnancy menace. In earlier years, Muslims generally married off their daughters at the age of puberty to avoid possibilities of teenage pregnancies. With current issues on Child Rights and compulsory formal education, most young girls in Muslim communities complete primary and secondary education before marriage and child birth.
The governments of various Sub-Saharan African countries should get families and the various religious bodies involved in effective training and advice on the immorality of teenage pregnancies, and generally on the avoidance of sexual relations before age 18, the age of adulthood.
The third process is to create an agency within the Ministry of Health that will make contraceptive methods, condoms and others, easily available to adults and underage persons.
Decreasing polygamous marriage levels
Polygamous marriages occur in non-Catholic religious communities, in traditional religious communities, and among atheists. Polygamy is essentially part of the cultures of Africa. For the non-Catholic religious communities, the traditional religious communities and the atheists, it will be important to use moral suasion in getting the various communities to be aware of the values of one man one wife.
As always, making free contraceptive methods available to all married and unmarried adults should help a great deal in reducing fertility rates in respective countries on the continent.
Curbing rates of divorce and remarriages
Divorce and remarriages are very personal issues making it extremely difficult to make recommendations. Pre-marital counseling in the churches and in the mosques, as may be necessary, is recommended as one of the effective ways for reducing the rates of divorce and remarriages.
Improving life in large rural populations
To curb high fertility in the rural areas, some of the strategies will include ensuring compulsory education from kindergarten to secondary school; effective implementation of reduced number of children policy; access to free contraceptive methods; and encouraging agro-businesses to be set up in the rural areas to provide employment opportunities.
General recommendations for slowing down Africa’s population growth
The summary set of recommendations for slowing down the continents population growth is as follows:
Government policy on two children per family
It will be necessary for governments on the African continent to adopt a policy on two children per family from now and well into the next century. The population replacement fertility rate of 2.1, that is, encouraging 2.1 children per family, is aimed at creating a stationary population while simultaneously allowing for death rates and a little opportunity for population increase.
Following the Chinese example, a family that is able to maintain the two children per family policy for ten or more years could be considered for a prize or gift of some sort. The government of Dubai was recently quoted as offering gold prizes to persons who are able to lose weight. This makes sense, because excess body weight leads to many diseases that in the long run lead to extensive hospital treatments; treatments that in many cases require increased government public expenditure.
Apart from gifts and prizes, some other incentives for families that comply with government’s two children policy should also be considered: financial support in the form of employment; or scholarship schemes for two children families could be considered after satisfaction of some stated criteria.
Policy of marriageable age at 24
Apart from the two children per family policy, governments could also move the marriageable age of girls from age 18 in some countries to age 24. Young adult females who are endowed with high potential for child bearing could start bearing children from age 16-18, stopping at age 42, after more than six children. It is such situations that should be prevented. Setting marriage and child bearing age at 24 for females will ensure that female child bearing period is contained within the age of 24-to 45, bearing in mind the two children limits.
Family planning:
Family planning activities that started in many countries on the continent should be renewed. Seminars, conferences and other ways for reaching women and families should be increased. The goal of such seminars and meetings is to create more awareness of the values of reducing fertility rates, and more importantly, emphasizing government policy on two children per family.
For more effectiveness, Family Planning Centres should be equipped to provide information on birth control through the following:
- Free supply of contraceptive facilities
- Advice and safe ways on abortion where extremely needed
- Co-ordinate family planning activities in the various parts of the country
Moral suasion through the churches and mosques
Schools, churches and the mosques should all be encouraged and given the necessary facilities to get involved in the process of advising and persuading young males and females on the necessity for reducing fertility rates.
Medical examination of intended couples
To avoid problems that may be congenital in any of the intended couple, each of the intended couple should be required to attend a medical examination at an approved medical centre. The principle in this case is to ensure that hidden medical problems that may inhibit child bearing; or that may lead to transfer of family diseases to the newly born children are discovered and resolved before the marriage. Apart from character incompatibility, divorce and remarriages are also due to inability of one or both of the couple to fulfill their biological responsibilities in the marriage.
Marriage counseling
Marriage counseling is provided in many of the churches presently but should be made a general practice in all churches and mosques.
Every person is different from any other person. Our tastes, desires, attitudes and abilities are all different from other persons. This is the basic reason why a number of married couples are never able to get along after just two or three years of marriage. The churches presently provide the avenues for marriage counseling before the couple tie the knot. But allowances should be made for training more people as marriage counselors, and giving them the chances for setting up their own private marriage counseling offices.
Prohibiting Radio adverts on medications for enhancing male potency
Without naming any African country, it is recommended that radio advertisements on medications for improving male sexual potency, mostly medications produced from local herbs, should be prohibited. Young boys in the ages of 14-18 or even earlier ages, listen to such adverts, procure such medications with the aim of trying them out. This is one of the sources for teenage pregnancies. Male potency issues must be strictly dealt with by doctors in the hospitals and not by radio or TV recommendations. While spending huge sums of money for public education on family planning and birth control, such radio adverts open wider windows for younger people to indulge in uncontrolled sexual experiments that run counter to government efforts in family planning.
Increased education
Increased education from kindergarten to end of secondary school is acceptably one of the greatest sources for improving the human capacity to understand their world and make more intelligent choices. Keeping people in school opens their minds, provides them with knowledge and skills for personal and societal growth, and also prevents them from indulging in unwanted negative practices. Governments could enforce measures to ensure that very few young persons drop out of the education ladder before completing secondary school.
Priority on women’s education
As much as possible, the education system in the countries of the continent should give priority to the education of girls and women. The education of girls has particularly been delayed for a long time until recently because traditional families tended to prefer educating their male children than their daughters. The realization of the importance of providing full education for the female half of the country’s population is only recent. By educating women, the children in families acquire head-start in education and in life. Mothers are in more constant touch with children than fathers and are therefore more able to pass on knowledge and skills to their children faster. This aspect of family life generally helps the education growth of countries.
Create Jobs and meaningful employment
In the process of job creation in the towns and villages, consideration should be given to the kinds of jobs provided, especially when such jobs are being provided by government. A private entrepreneur does not mind setting up a company to operate 30 taxis. The taxi business provides jobs; but these jobs have very little relationship with the types of knowledge and skills young men and women have acquired in their school education. Taxi driving jobs do not offer meaningful employment to young men and women who have had education up to secondary school level and for young men and women who have had tertiary level education.
When governments offer job opportunities, the businesses involved should generally be types that demand some amount of knowledge and skills such that employees would find their jobs meaningful and not repetitive and boring. Repetitive and boring jobs with no relation to school education invariably lead to frequent absenteeism and resignations.
Reduce the size of the rural population
Currently, there is no need for a country to have 60 percent of its population in agriculture. Only 10 percent or less than 10 percent of the population with appropriate machinery and gadgets could operate farms much larger than 30 hectares. Many farmers in African countries operate farms with sizes just about 2 hectares and sometimes less than this. Farm sizes should be increased and operated with modern machinery. This is the only way to increase farm production in Africa and also release much of the youth from the rural areas into productive technical jobs in the rural areas and in the towns and cities.
Assist the villages to grow into townships
The villages could be assisted to grow into small towns by the processes of providing them the following:
- Schools that are as good as those in the urban areas
- Good quality teachers
- Most of the basic necessities of life: pipe borne water, electricity, clinics and good roads
It is such facilities that will make life more pleasant for people who are born in the villages; who will consequently have less inclination to migrate to the towns and cities; and who will appreciate and practice advice on fertility rate reduction.
