Tanzania wants more people

Iwas one of five children, so I am in an invidious position when I write about population growth. That was quite normal where I grew up at the time, but my brothers and sisters and I have had a total of only 10 children, so we’re down to replacement level in this generation.

This is not happening in Tanzania. ‘‘Women can now throw away their contraceptives,’’ said Tanzanian president John Magufuli this month.

Secondary education is now free in the East African country, he pointed out, so children are no longer such a major expense. Tanzania needs more people, and women who don’t have more babies are just lazy. ‘‘They do not want to work hard to feed a large family, and that is why they opt for birth control and end up with one or two children only,’’ Magufuli continued. ‘‘I have travelled in Europe and elsewhere and have seen the harmful effects of birth control.’’

This is not really a problem in Tanzania, where the average woman has more than five children. The population has grown at a steady 3 per cent for decades, and since independence in 1961, it has increased sixfold, from 10 million to 60m. There is no sign of the birthrate dropping, and the country is on course for 100m in less than 20 years.

Yet President Magufuli thinks women should throw away their contraceptives because the country needs more people. He is not alone in this conviction. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, which has about the same birthrate as Tanzania, once told me that his country could easily feed 100m people. He called the country’s population explosion ‘‘a great resource’’.

Uganda’s population at independence in 1962 was 7m. It’s now 45m and will reach that 100m target in about 30 years – and there is no reason to believe that it will stop there. Uganda’s birthrate has not dropped in decades, either.

The end-of-century predictions for these countries if birthrates gradually drop towards replacement level, as they did in Asia and Latin America in the past 50 years, is about 300m each. But if the birthrates don’t drop in future decades, as they have not dropped in past decades, then these two countries alone will have a billion people in 2100. That’s a very bad idea.

Tanzania and Uganda together have about twice the area of France, which has only 65m people. They would, with a billion people, be about eight times more densely populated than France – but unlike France, the great majority of their people would still be poor.

Five or 10 times its current population will make it weaker, not stronger. It will also ruin the environment and leave a lot of people hungry.

Magufuli has won popularity throughout East Africa with his flamboyant campaign against corruption. He is also a thin-skinned authoritarian who had banned street protests, closed down two radio stations for ‘‘sedition’’ and brought charges against at least 10 people for ‘‘insulting’’ him on social media platforms, but a recent opinion poll in Tanzania gave him 96 per cent support.

Hardly anybody in Tanzania sees curbing population growth as a priority, and it’s certainly not a vote winner. Indeed, this is true for subsaharan Africa as a whole, and those who point out that it really is a problem that could ruin the continent’s future are frequently accused of neocolonial or racist attitudes. But there are a few bright spots, and one of them is Ghana. Ghana’s population was 5m at independence in 1957. Now, it’s 30m. But with great effort, it has now got its ‘‘total fertility’’ down to four children per woman, and if the birthrate continues to fall, the prediction is for ‘‘only’’ 73m people at the end of the century.

Knowing how to bluff and being able to read other players all help... there is only so much you can do with a pair of fours.