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RE-THINK POPULATION: AFRICAN’S NEW PLAGUE

INTRODUCTION

According to the World Bank, population growth rates have decelerated globally, but Africa will nonetheless experience strong population growth throughout the predictable future. By the year 2050, the population of Africa is projected to double, reaching up to two and a half billion inhabitants. While population growth may come with lots of problems, many observers and decision makers and concerns individuals have started to issue warnings about population growth in Africa as a potential cause or risk factor for conflict or for weakening security, along with related forecasted problems such as increased and uncontrolled migration. Regarding conflict risks, high birth rates or other drivers of population growth can lead to population pressures that may create a greater scarcity of economic resources and, as a result, lead to violent conflicts over the distribution of scarce resources, uncommon practice to produce food at the detriment of the environment.

European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in 2022 reported that;

environmental degradation is driven not only by climate change but also by factors such as rapid population growth, over-consumption, unsustainable management and depletion of natural resources, industrialisation, and also conflicts, has put pressure on African ecosystems. This has resulted in harm to habitats and wildlife with ensuing biodiversity loss, increased food insecurity, exacerbation of socio-economic deprivation and grievances, and the emergence of poverty traps for a large portion of the population living in rural areas who are dependent on natural resources for their own livelihoods. In turn, this also fosters increased pressure through intensified illicit and unsustainable use of natural resources (e.g. illegal logging, felling of trees, poaching, overfishing, animal trafficking, smuggling).

Today, most developing countries have achieved quite low levels of mortality and fertility and much lower rates of population growth than in the 1960s. The situation is quite different in Africa and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In that region of the continent, mortality declines have stalled, or even reversed, in the 1980s and ...

Gaius JB

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