by Marwa Yahya
CAIRO, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt has to either adopt birth control programs firmly or face threats of increasing poverty rates as the country's population is increasing so fast to become a heavy burden, said Egyptian experts.
Egypt's population has officially hit 100 million, compared to 99 million in July last year, the population clock of the country's official statistics agency showed on Tuesday.
REASONS
"The large percentage of the country's population is young people, who get married and have children early. So even if one family has only two children, the population density will increase," said Hala Mansour, professor of sociology with Ain Shams University.
"The biggest problem is the fact that a large number of the young people belong to the poor class citizens, who are not responding to the awareness programs on family planning," Mansour told Xinhua.
She warned that if these people, who consider children as a source of income, do not follow the birth control programs, the population pyramid of Egypt in the coming decade will be distorted, because the majority of the new births will suffer high rates of poverty and social diseases.
REPERCUSSIONS
The current population growth rate poses a threat to the nation and holds back its development plans, said Waleed Gaballah, member of the Egyptian Association for Political and Economic Legislation.
The basic elements of production are natural resources, capital, organization, and workforce. Egypt already has abundant workforce, but its natural resources are limited, he added.
So, when the population increase is much greater than its resources, it turns into a terrible burden on the country, Gaballah explained.
Providing job opportunities amid the current population increase would be an unbearable obstacle which needs large and sustainable foreign investment, he said.
The economic expert reiterated that Egypt needs to control the increasing population in parallel with increasing investment and achieving sustainable economic growth that exceeds the growth rate of the population.
SOLUTIONS
"We can choose to adopt birth planning or face poverty increase," said Amro Hassan, former secretary general of the National Council for Population.
According to a report of Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics published in July 2019, the poverty rate in Egypt increased by 32.5 percent.
Hassan said that population growth is the main reason for the increase of the poverty rate, adding that Egypt witnessed a 2-million increase in population in 14 months.
"Egyptian society reproduces in an amazing way that prevents it from enjoying the modern societies' standard of living, and Egypt has a huge surplus of population that exceeds its capabilities," Hassan added.
"Solving the population problem is the key to Egypt's national planning," he said, noting that Egypt has started to solve the population problem since 1965, but the achievements are still poor.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly said that the current rate of population growth poses a threat to the nation and holds back its development plans.
Last year, Egypt launched a two-year initiative dubbed "Two Is Enough" to lower fertility rates and encourage people, especially those in rural areas, to have fewer children.
The program is mostly locally financed, with the Social Solidarity Ministry spending 75 million Egyptian pounds (4.7 million U.S. dollars) and the UN providing 637,111 dollars.
Hassan expected the government to adopt "positive incentives" to encourage the citizens to apply the family planning measures.
On Wednesday, Egyptian cabinet discussed a national project for family planning which seeks to reduce the population growth rate to 2 percent instead of 3.2 percent, according to Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed.
The project will also include incentives such as supporting small and micro enterprises, providing family planning and lending services, as well as launching awareness campaigns through various means of communication on the birth control tools and merits.
Meanwhile, Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Feb. 7 that the government is taking measures to limit subsidies to only two children per family.
These measures will start applying to newborns instead of those currently receiving subsidies, he explained, within the aim of controlling population growth rates.
If the current high fertility rates, which reached 3.4 births per woman, continue, the number of Egyptians will reach 192 million by 2052, said Minister of Planning Hala al-Saeed.
But if family planning programs succeed in reducing the birth rate to 2.1 births per woman, the population is expected to reach 143 million by 2052, al-Saeed added.
