Egypt’s population will reach 128M by 2030: MoH

CAIRO – 12 September 2017: Egypt’s population would reach 128 million in 2030 if the current average birth rate of four children continues, said Deputy Minister of Health Maysa Shawki on Monday. Shawki added that if the total fertility rate drops to 3.5 per woman, the population will reach 120 million in the same year.

The deputy minister presented to the Parliament’s Social Solidarity Committee the National Council’s strategy to face overpopulation in Egypt. She explained that the strategy’s implementation plan 2015-2020 includes four pillars: family planning and reproductive health, education, youth empowerment, and media.

Shawki further explained that the strategy is linked to other relevant strategies, including a national anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) strategy, the family empowerment document, the reproductive health strategy and efforts to prevent early marriage.

Overpopulation in Egypt continues to risk the country’s resources and commitment to achieve sustainable development in accordance with Egypt’s development strategy vision 2030.

According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Egypt loses nearly 60,000 acres per year as a result of soil erosion and construction. Moreover, the country’s share of water from the Nile, approximately 55 billion cubic meters per year, has remained unchanged since 1954 despite the increase in population.

If the population increase rate continues, the state will not be able to support that many people, and national production would be insufficient to meet their needs, thus making the country dependent on imports, which further burden the economy.

During the first session of the fourth National Youth Conference in Alexandria on July 24, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said that overpopulation and terrorism are Egypt’s two real threats. In the same month, CAPMAS reported that the population of Egypt has reached 93.332 million, indicating that the population rose from 72.8 million in 2006 to 92.1 million at the beginning of 2017.

CAPMAS indicated that Cairo is the largest governorate in terms of population, with a population of about 9.6 million, while South Sinai has the lowest number out of the governorates with 173,000 people, as of January 2017.

“The Egyptian population is considered a young society. The age group below 15 years is one third of the population, or 31.3 percent, while the proportion of the population ages 65 and over was only 4.3 percent, at the beginning of 2017,” CAPMAS said.