Africa Blamed as Continued Global Population Growth Creates Challenges

[internet police]

BOOK INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS TICKETS LOCAL FLIGHTS HOTELS BOOKINGS WORLDWIDE AND MORE AT CHEAPEST RATE EVER! CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR FLIGHT AND RECEIVE YOUR FLIGHT TICKET INSTANTLY

The United Nation's latest global population projection predicts there will be 8 billion people on the planet by November and that the population will gradually increase to 8.5 billion by 2050 and to more than 10 billion by 2080. That growth will come with significant economic and environmental implications.

The projected growth is not evenly spread across the world. Some regions, including Eastern and Southeastern Asia, are expected to shrink in population, while North America and Europe are expected to grow at very low rates. The bulk of the population growth is expected to come from sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia.

The move past the 8 billion mark masks the fact that globally, the population is growing at its slowest rate since the 1950s. Two-thirds of all people currently live in regions where the fertility rate, measured in births per woman, has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1. In many cases, those falling rates are driven in part by government policies.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Growth will be most concentrated among eight countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania.

Of those eight, the countries in sub-Saharan Africa will account for more than half of the world's population increase over the next 30 years, creating what U.N. officials called a potential “demographic dividend,” with the share of working-age adults, defined as those between 26 and 64 years of age, rising as a share of the population.

Countries looking forward to an increase in the number of working age people as a share of the overall population, “have an opportunity to maximize the benefits of the dividend by investing in human capital formation,” the report found.

“While the demographic circumstances underlying the dividend are conducive to rapid economic growth on a per capita basis, reaping its potential benefits requires significant investments in education and health, progress towards gender equality and the availability of gainful employment.”