Why the high population growth rate should worry every Kenyan

Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya chose an interesting moment to release the results of the 2009 population census – just when we were recovering from the prolonged feel-good bash that was the signing of the new Constitution.

But even as we recover from all the feasting, Mr Oparanya’s report calls for some soul-searching.
Kenya is growing at a million people a year. And, as religious leaders will say, large populations can be a good thing to have.

Economists swoon at the large internal markets that massive populations translate into. They look at China and India with envy, seeing in those giants’ growing economic power and increasing material prosperity a vindication for having many babies.

The religious leaders see, in the many new babies, future converts to their respective creeds – always, of course, with an eye on more converts. Too much of a good thing, it appears, is good. It isn’t.

It is not for nothing that China imposes a draconian one-child policy. Unfettered population growth is both dangerous and illogical – for the simple reason that nothing is infinite.

Our growing population has to be fed and housed, educated and given medical care, and needs to be provided with employment or business opportunities. It is not difficult to see that we are not doing anywhere near as good as we should in any of those sectors.

We cannot feed ourselves. In fact, the last time that Kenya had any sort of real food security was during, and in the years immediately after, the presidency of Jomo Kenyatta.

His successor, Mr Daniel Moi, introduced previously unheard-of levels of corruption and tribalism in the public sector, dangerously reducing the capacity of State institutions to monitor and respond to issues affecting food security.

The result was that, despite ample warning, the failure of rains in the Central and Western highlands in 1983 caused the 1984-85 famine. There is no telling how many million Kenyans died of starvation in that famine – Moi was allergic to public accountability – but Kenya’s food security was gone for good.

It did not help matters that Mr Moi destroyed the Kenya Farmers Association and also went off on political vendettas that nearly ended export crop production in Central, Western and Nyanza regions, drastically reducing purchasing power as soaring food prices and falling revenues exposed dangerous gaps in our ability to sustain ourselves.

This malaise has continued. This year, about five million Kenyans are surviving on food aid paid for principally by the West.
This sad state of affairs has extended to other sectors.

The housing sector in Kenya is an economic wonder – a largely do-it-yourself national exercise in which the well-off survive and the rest move to the slums.

But with a tiny middle class and very few people being in a position to build or buy their own houses, our urban population is some of the most poorly housed anywhere.

Similar stories can be seen in the health sector, where a lack of investment and a ruinous brain-drain has left Kenyans enjoying the same health facilities, as the migrating wildebeest of the Serengeti: none.

The government has its work cut out planning and catering for this burgeoning population. There is no silver bullet that will suddenly deliver food security or provide health and education facilities for the one million extra Kenyans we will produce this year.

But we certainly can’t avoid discussing the population growth rate, and the measures needed to contain it. The extensive family planning programmes that Moi inherited from Kenyatta were largely dead by the mid-1980s, as his appointees stole all the money.

President Kibaki needs to revive them, and he must contain the procreative enthusiasm of religious leaders who seem to be allergic to anything resembling planned parenthood.

More importantly, the government ought to increase its efforts to get more girls into school – by force, if need be – and keep them there for longer. Contraceptives also should be made widely available, despite the almost certain objections of the religious leaders.

This will be expensive, but Kenya has few other options right now. With such a high population growth rate and no food, we are fast growing into another Ethiopia.

Mr Wanyonyi is an information systems professional working in the Middle East. (pwanyonyi@gmail.com)