The African Population Boom of the 21st Century

[Tender Branson]

To those who think fertility is declining fast in Africa ... they are wrong.

As I have posted in my Global Census thread, recent census results from major African countries actually suggest that growth has picked up speed, not declined.

Virtually all African countries are growing by about 3% or even more than that - which will put a huge burden on the biosphere that is already getting destroyed heavily there.

Even the Arab countries in the North of Africa, which had declining growth rates between 1980 and 2005, are now experiencing significantly higher fertility rates and growth than before - mostly because of the spread of Islamism and its backwards ideology - sponsored by Saudi-Arabia.

Also, Africa is different than other poor regions on the planet where fertility has been falling: Most African men and women think it is desireable to have large families with 6-10 children, so the estimates shown in the OP are likely being correct.

This will be a huge disaster for the continent and the people there, biosphere and animals - but also for Europe, because it is likely that large impoverished masses will swamp the continent later on.

[Tender Branson]

Growth rates in Africa aren't increasing because of fertility rates, it is a combination of declining death rates + declining infant moratility + the first generation of children not to suffer from high infant moratility reaching child bearing ages. Fertility rates are a lagging factor, so tend to drop after the fall in death rates.

And suggesting that Africans all want to have 10 kids doesnt stack up. If you look at wealthier African countries like Botswana (2.8 children per woman); South Africa (2.3); Namibia (3.5); and look at the dramataic decline in places like Kenya or Ghana you can already see that Africans are just like the rest of the world, they start having less kids as they get older

The problem is:

Namibia and Botswana are virtually the only 2 "wealthier" countries in Africa.

Besides, they have just 2 million people each - which means nothing because all the growth takes place in impoverished countries like Uganda or Congo, which are growing by 3.5% and have 40 Mio. and 80 Mio. people. The same with Nigeria and virtually all other countries.

This pattern won't change for a very long time because the base of young people in the countries is expanding fast and even if fertility declines the growth will be higher than before because of that expanded base of younger people ...

Also, South Africa is growing much faster again than in the 1990s, because the AIDS situation there is "under control" - leading to fewer deaths.

[Tender Branson]

This is a huge problem, mostly because prosperity will not nearly increase as much as the population. Former Dutch VVD leader Frits Bolkestein said that for their and our sake, European countries should start getting serious in spending development aid on increasing access to contraceptives in Africa, and I wholly agree.

That's true, but a hard sell for the voters in each country.

A good idea would be to increase development aid for Africa by the amount that the silly EU-commissioner Oettinger from Germany wants to increase the next EU budget, despite the UK exiting the bloc.

This guy and several others indeed not only want to make up the gap left by the UK but also to increase the budget further ...

Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are against, and rightly so.

Especially African women need to get much more education and access to contraceptives. Sadly, this is battled by the fascist US-led Evangelical Church (maybe the Catholibans too ?) and their Muslim extremist counterparts, who see contraceptives as the "tools of the devil" ...

[Tender Branson]

Has anyone seen statistics showing any change in projections?

Mostly page 2:

https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019-Wallchart.pdf