Is Africa’s Projected Population by 2050 a Blessing or a Curse?

According to the World Bank, Sub-Sharan Africa is set to be home to over a billion people by the year 2050, half of whom will be under the age of 25. Africa has been proved to be a continent with unique human and natural resources that have huge potential upside to create inclusive growth and alleviate poverty in the region.   

With the world’s largest free trade zone area and a 1.2-billion-person market, Africa is in a great position to create a new growth and development path by harnessing the power of its resources and the ingenuity of her people. However, Africa’s rapidly growing population presents a unique set of challenges if not properly harnessed. If properly harnessed, the potential for economic development in the long term is enormous as economic and development experts have continued to point out.

While Sub-Saharan Africa’s population currently stands at approximately 856 million, the World Bank estimates that another half a billion people will be added to the continent by 2030. They further project that the continent will be home to two billion people by 2050, and that three out of every four persons added to the global population between now and 2100 will be in Africa.

Driving this population growth are a myriad of factors which include better one word, meaning more babies are surviving birth complications, and fewer adults are dying from preventable diseases. On the other hand, early marriages have been cited as among causative factors for the high birth rates in Africa.

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On the average, a mother in Africa is said to have five children, compared to the global average of two. In Niger for instance, the country with the world’s highest fertility rate, mothers are said to average eight births, five times more than the European average of two children per woman…

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