With too many mouths to feed, Kenya headed for trouble

At 34 years, Teresia Kananu is a mother of six; five girls and one boy. Her first born is 19 years old while her last born just turned four. When she got pregnant with her first child, she had just fallen in love; the breathy, reckless kind of first love that makes an impressionable 15-year-old leave her parents’ home and move in with her boyfriend.

She had dreams for her young family, dreams that she would see her two children grow up strong and healthy and educated.

Yes, she wanted just two children, and she was determined to give them the education she never had, having dropped out of school at Standard Two after, she says, her father refused to continue paying her school fees.

Nineteen years down the line, Teresia finds herself the mother of six children, none of whom she has managed to educate beyond primary school. They all live in a two-room tin-house which looks like it can collapse at the slightest hint of a stiff wind.

Her first husband and the father of her first three children died under mysterious circumstances while in prison. She remarried, and then three more children came.

How did her life play out this way? How did her dream of two healthy, educated children disintegrate into the nightmare of six whom she can barely feed?

“I don’t know,” she says. “The children just kept coming and it seems there was nothing I could do. I only caught a break when my first husband died and did not bear any children for six years. But immediately I remarried, I popped out three in quick succession, cancelling all the good the break had given me.”

Teresia’s story is not a unique one. Not special in any way. And that is precisely the reason we picked it to wade into the bare-knuckle facts and statistics that prompted this article.

The reality is that Kenyan women are having children — unplanned children — and lots of them. And as a result, the country finds itself in the midst of a population explosion that points to tough times ahead.

Here are some fast facts: Kenya’s fertility rate stands at 4.6, according to statistics from the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2008. This means that, on average, a Kenyan woman gives birth to four children, or five if you round off.

The average fertility rate for the world is 2.49 per cent, meaning that a Kenyan woman is likely to give birth to three more children than the average woman in the world.

REPLACEMENT LEVEL

The latest report by the World Bank puts Kenya’s population at 44.35 million, up from the 38 million counted during the 2009 census. To maintain its current population, Kenya’s fertility rate would have to immediately dip to 2.2 births per woman. This is the “replacement level” which would ensure that the population neither grows nor declines.

By the year 2030, Kenya is hoping to transform into an industrialised, middle-income country. Try to picture it: tighter security; smoother, wider roads; better-equipped hospitals; more schools; more airports; improved railway network; more jobs for everyone. It sounds like the collective dream of a nation coming true.

But in the same year, Kenya’s population will have hit the 65 million mark. And there is nothing we can do about it. Not when our fertility rate is at 5.6 per cent.

A population analysis report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in July last year argues that even if the fertility rate was to immediately drop to the replacement level, Kenya’s population would continue to grow for at least a few years because of the population growth momentum created by an overwhelmingly youthful population.

“Forty three per cent of Kenya’s population is under 15 years and as much as 63 per cent is below 25,” says George Kichamu, the director of technical services at National Council of Population and Development. “These young people are approaching their reproductive years, meaning that even if the girls were to have just two children each, there would still be a steep rise in the population.”

In order for the country to benefit from a low fertility rate, it will have to wait until the current young ones have had their two children each, leading to progressively fewer births per generation. If sustained, this will lead to a situation where Kenya has a population growth rate of zero, an ideal that has been achieved by many developed countries.

But according to the National Council of Population and Development, Kenya’s current population growth rate stands at 2.9 per cent. This means that every year, between one million and 1.1 million new people are added to the population.

Apart from the high fertility rate, another reason that Kenya finds itself in this dicey position is that the mortality rate has continued to drop over the years.

Better health care systems and an improved quality of life means more infants are surviving at birth and living long enough to celebrate their fifth birthday.

These children are then expected to live until they are 60, which is the national life expectancy figure. It is still below the world average of 70, but much better than it was a few years ago.

A high, rapidly growing population comes with challenges that pervade the country at all levels. At the most basic level, it means that Kenya has more mouths to feed, more people to house and more people to provide jobs for.

STRAIN ON RESOURCES

A high population means that there is that much strain on the already meagre resources we have fought over for years. Land clashes — the salt in the politically inflicted wounds that we perennially nurse — are the clearest example.

And it is no rocket science; the more people there are, the more land-related conflicts they trigger because everyone is fighting to have a piece of a pie, no matter how thin the slice.

The most obvious solution to mitigating this crisis is cutting the fertility rate and ensuring that Kenyans start having smaller families. The answer lies in provision of family planning methods and wide availability of reproductive health services.

Remember Teresia from the beginning? She confides that, for a long time, she had no access to any form of family planning, leaving her with no control over how many children she got.

“I would hear women in the village talking about contraceptives but it was always in a negative way, where popular belief held that contraceptives cause cancer,” she says. “For this reason, I shied away from attending family planning sessions even though they were available at Meru Level 5 Hospital.”

Her attitude changed when her sixth child came and she realised that unless she sought help, she would continue bearing unplanned children whose lives were bound to be as uncertain as those of their siblings.

This fear of popping a seventh baby is what informed her decision to start using contraceptives in 2009. She has not had any other pregnancies since.

Like we said earlier, Teresia’s story is not unique. She was just part of the statistics that make up the 54 per cent of married women who do not use any form of contraception, according to the 2008 Kenya and Demographic Health Survey.

The biggest reason for this sorry state of affairs is the overwhelming misinformation about contraceptive use and family other reproductive health issues. Women remain woefully ignorant of family planning methods, with some like Teresia believing that the more modern ones such as pills and injectables lead to diseases.

Many women do not have access to family planning services and in some cases their husbands do not allow them to make use of these services even when they are available. In addition, cultural beliefs and practices, especially among women in rural areas, have contributed to low uptake of family planning methods.

As the population council engages in ways of scaling down the numbers to more manageable levels in the next few generations, what do we do with the youth budge we currently have on our hands?

Can our country take advantage of its young population to realise developmental milestones that would otherwise remain illusions?

Kenya, as well as the rest of the East African region, is uniquely placed to enjoy great economic growth in the next 30 to 50 years if it is willing to put in the work and invest in its youthful population.

“The Chinese say that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the next best time is now,” says Dr John Ssekamatte of the Ugandan Planning Authority, responding to a question on whether East African countries can achieve their demographic dividend.

“If these countries make the necessary investments in education, health care and skill development for young people today, then in 30 years they will be poised to reap from an educated, healthy populace with the necessary skills to grow their GDPs,” he says.

Mr Kichamu of NCPD is in agreement, saying that emphasis should be laid on the education of girls.

“Better educated girls go on to have smaller families which is crucial if Kenya is to cut its fertility rate,” he explains, “The longer a girl stays in school, the longer she delays motherhood, which in turn leads to healthier birth outcomes.”

He adds that the government must improve transition levels between primary and secondary schools, as well as between secondary school and universities, to ensure that the youth are afforded a quality education.

The theme of this year’s World Population Day, celebrated on July 11, was “Investing in the Youth as a Way to Secure the Future Generation”.

Should we follow through and find a way to turn policy into action, then the next generation may not have to grapple with the daily challenges that have become a part of us.