There is a country where the cries of new babies can be heard at a rate of 5,683 every day, 237 per hour, 4 per minute, and 1 every 15 seconds. This is the story of Egypt, which is suffering from rapid population growth. The government called for the implementation of birth메이저사이트 control policies as the population increased faster than the economic growth rate.
According to local media such as Egypt Today and Bloomberg News on the 6th (local time), Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sisi expressed concern about population growth at a cabinet meeting the day before (the 5th) and said, “If birth control measures are not implemented, a disaster could occur.” “There is,” he said.
President El-Sisi said, “The problem of overpopulation is putting a burden on Egyptian society as a whole. “If this is not resolved, it will be difficult to maintain the current government budget for education and healthcare.”
Egypt’s population increased from 71.37 million in 2000 to 87.25 million in 2010. In 2020, the population exceeded 100 million. Currently, Egypt’s total fertility rate is close to 3. The United Nations predicts that if current trends continue, Egypt’s population will reach 128 million in 2030.
Since coming to power in 2014, President El-Sisi has been implementing a birth control policy under the slogan, “Two is enough.” The government’s target is 2.11, but the total fertility rate in 2021 was 2.9.
When his existing policies were ineffective, President El-Sisi brought up China’s one-child policy as an example of a birth control measure. President El-Sisi said, “China has been implementing the ‘one-child policy’ since 1968, and has been allowing second children since 2015. They have succeeded in their population control policy.”
In some quarters, criticism is being raised that the government is suppressing freedom. Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar argued at a cabinet meeting that “having children is freedom,” but President El-Sisi asked, “Are we giving freedom to people who don’t know the extent of the country’s crisis? “In the end, it is the entire society and the state that bear the responsibility,” he said, adding that Egypt is currently experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history.
In fact, as the population has recently increased rapidly, Egypt’s economic difficulties have begun to deepen. Egypt’s poverty rate (people with median income below 50% of the total population) increased from 27.8% in 2015 to 31.9% in 2020. The unemployment rate is close to 7%, and the inflation rate last July was 36.5%. As foreign exchange reserves ran out, Egypt applied for a bailout worth $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) last year.
Hussein Abdel Aziz, advisor to the Central Statistics Office, said, “Egypt’s birth rate over the past three years has been about 2.2 million people per year, which is equivalent to the population of a small country.”