Will a two-child family lead to a better life as the National Population Conference calls for, wonders Reem Leila Egypt's population could more than double, reaching 160 million by 2050 and hindering social and economic development unless something is done to address this "compelling" problem, warned President Hosni Mubarak on Monday. He was addressing participants at Egypt's second National Population Conference. Mubarak, who in the past blamed population growth for overburdening state resources, said that it now constitutes a "major challenge" and "fundamental obstacle" to development. Even if measures are taken to slow the rate of population growth, experts predict that the population of Egypt will reach close to 100 million in 2025. The challenge, said Mubarak, needs to be tackled "by this generation and by generations to come" if it is not to "obstruct our efforts for development and improving standards of living". In the last 30 years Egypt's population has doubled. Despite the economy expanding at an annual rate of seven per cent, unemployment is rampant and 40 per cent of Egyptians live on or below the poverty line. Against a backdrop of random protests at rising food prices and reductions in the subsidies paid on staples such as bread there is an urgent need, say commentators, to kick-start the debate on how best to minimise the stresses that population growth places on limited resources. Improving the status of women and reducing illiteracy, said Mubarak, are key factors in reducing population growth rates. While he stopped short of calling for birth-control measures, something that might not play well with an increasingly conservative public, in the past Mubarak has called on religious leaders and government ministries to "educate people about the problem". Speaker after speaker at the conference stressed that resolving Egypt's overpopulation problem is the key to political stability, economic growth and the provision of better health services. "Egypt is unable to meet the basic needs of its population. If it was able to feed itself it would not need to squander a third of its import budget on food," said Hussein Abdel-Aziz, a member of the executive committee of the National Population Council. Fewer people means less competition for scarce resources such as land, food and water and also a lower rate of unemployment. "This is not a matter of complicated economic theories but of common sense." Government measures, he continued, to aid agriculture through technical support and by providing credit lines to poor farmers, initiating family planning and educational programmes and restricting harmful industrial or agricultural practices can all combine to create a higher standard of living. Madiha Khattab, head of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) Health and Population Committee, revealed that the conference had discussed ways of promoting consensus on a raft of demographic policy goals, including rationalising demographic growth rates. Affirming commitment to successfully implementing the population strategic plan by adopting efficient mechanisms, and confirming the inter- connection between demographic and development policies in general, had become an urgent task, she said. Much of the discussion at the conference focussed on how to consolidate the relation between population, sustainable development and the optimal reproduction level for Egyptian families so as to improve living conditions and publicise the idea that two children for every family leads to a better life for everyone. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif pointed out that in the absence of a reduction in population growth rates economic and political reforms are doomed to failure. Egypt, he argued, has the right to assert its independence from the overbearing, paternalistic measures of developed countries and determine its own national policy on birth control, agricultural practices and economic issues. "Egypt has already announced that it can reduce population growth rates," he said, and must now monitor its rates of population growth. Nazif warned that the spectre of socio-economic deterioration could all too easily become a reality should Egypt fail to adopt workable solutions. Minister of Health and Population Hatem El-Gabali announced that the government had increased the budget of the National Population Conference from LE250 million to LE500 million for the next five years, with the increase in funding going to finance national campaigns that aim to reduce the rate of population growth by persuading the public that two children represents the optimal family size. When President Hosni Mubarak came to power in 1981 Egypt's population was 43 million. The first national population conference was held in 1984 in an attempt to generate awareness of the seriousness of the problems constituted by untrammelled population growth. A second conference, said El-Gabali, had become an urgent need given the sluggish application of plans that aimed to reduce population growth rates. He revealed that demographic growth rates will now be collated across all of Egypt's governorates at three monthly intervals, allowing policy-makers to tailor decisions to the reality on the ground and to identify the best practices so that success in one governorate can be replicated in others. (see p.2)
