"Middle" Africa to experience the fastest population growth

Demographic projections by the Population Reference Bureau for the first half of the 21st century show that the Democratic Republic of the Congo leads countries in "middle" Africa that are expected to experience the fastest population growth in the region.

The bureau's "World Population Data Sheet" for 2003 showed that the Congo, with an estimated population of 56.6 million, would have 181 million people by 2050.

Overall, the central Africa region's population will grow to 193 percent of its current size by 2050, followed by western Africa, which is expected to grow to 142 percent of its 2003 population. The population of southern Africa, a region that has been adversely affected by HIV/AIDS, was projected to fall by 22 percent.

African countries whose populations are expected to experience high increases are Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda.

The data sheet projected that in total, Africa's population could grow by more than a billion by 2050, increasing the strain on food and water supplies in areas already experiencing hardships.

Sub-Saharan African governments will have to create millions of jobs and improve health care facilities and schools, the report said.

The data sheet indicated that with every passing year, prospects for population growth in countries considered more developed and those termed less developed continued to be more dissimilar.

"On this year's Data Sheet, the total fertility rate for the more developed is a mere 1.5, compared with 3.1 in the less developed countries - 3.5 if outlier China's large statistical effect is removed," Carl Haub, author of the data sheet, said in a summary of the report.

The Population Reference Bureau was established more than 70 years ago, with the aim of informing people about population dimensions of social, economic and political issues. It is funded by government agencies, NGOs, foundations and universities.

[For the 2003 World Population Data Sheet, go to: www.prb.org ]