Kenya trails other African nations in numbers

At a birth rate of two babies per minute, Kenya trails regional neighbours and the rest of Africa where at least 46 babies are born every 60 seconds. Not surprisingly, Kenya is also lagging behind when it comes to economic growth as countries with high population growth rates recording higher economic growth.

Last month, the US government’s aid agency (USAID) and Population Reference Bureau, a non-governmental organisation, released a report showing that Africa’s population is growing by about 24 million a year. And while Kenya is worried that its women are on average bringing forth 2.8 children, the sub-Sahara Africa average stands at 5.3 children. The global average is 2.6 children.

Niger and Uganda have some of the highest fertility rates in the world at 7.4 and 6.5 respectively. By 2050, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of the Congo will be among the nine countries that will contribute half of the world’s population increase, with India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the United States taking the other four slots.

“In that time span, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia are expected to knock Russia and Japan off the list of the world’s top 10 most populous nations,” the Population Reference Bureau says in its annual World Population Data Sheet. Africa will also provide nine of the world’s 10 countries with the highest percentage of their populations aged 15 and below.

The countries includes Niger, Uganda, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Zambia, Malawi, Chad, Somalia, and Tanzania. Julian Simon an economist and demographer at the University of Maryland at College Park, writing in his book Population: The Ultimate Resource, says policymakers should not be worried of high population but rather the brain capacity of those born.

“It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, the most important economic effect of population size and growth is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge. And this contribution is large enough in the long run to overcome all the costs of population growth,” she says in defence of high population growth.

She adds that instead of policymakers worrying of high population they should spend time working to educate, train and creating a free environment that is conducive of innovation. “… and hopeful young people endowed with liberty - who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so inevitably benefit not only themselves but the rest of us as well,” she says.

Development economists point to China and India, two countries that account for one of every three babies born, but have had the highest economic growth. China, with population of over one billion, has been the fastest growing economy in the world over almost three decades, expanding at double digit, closely followed by India, whose population crossed the one billion level in May 2000.

Computing for comparative statistics, says Mr James Kathuri, a lecturer at Kenyatta University, writing for the Africa Executive, shows that China has approximately 133 people per square kilometre, India 319 while Kenya has only about 54 people per square kilometre.

Yet Kenya’s GDP has been flirting with negative growth rate. Even while compared to fast growing population such as Uganda (12 per cent in 2008) Kenya’s economic growth still trails (1.7 per cent in 2008). “Rather than blaming the burgeoning population, we need to address factors that have curbed growth and development,” Mr Kathuri says.