There is a possibility that Egypt’s population may exceed 130 million by 2030, which will pose significant challenges to the state’s sustainable development goals, according to a statement by Planning Minister Hala El Said yesterday.
“The issue of population growth is one of the most important challenges that hinder development efforts, and is placing increasing pressure on economic resources,” the statement noted.
“The sustainable development plan has been keen to include the population dimension in all areas of development and stressed the need to activate programs to control population growth.”
The plan for the current fiscal year 2019/2020 includes programs aimed at improving family planning and reproductive health services, such as the expansion of the availability of family planning and reproductive health services particularly for slums and rural areas, as well as developing the training curriculum for doctors and nurses.
In 2018, the Ministry of Social Solidarity launched a two-year project called ”2 Kefaya (Two [children] is enough) in order to get curb the number of children in Egypt.
It seeks to provide free birth control to families and develop family clinics which will appoint 3500,000 home visits in Egypt’s highest governorates with the highest birth rates such as Beheira, Giza, Beni Sweif, Luxor, Aswan and Qena.
Population growth also poses challenges to employment, as the International Monetary Fund projects a labor force of 80 million by 2028, which can lead to higher unemployment.
Many women still choose to have more than two children for many reasons, one of them being due to lack of access to birth control, additional financial support to the families, and the belief that birth control is religious forbidden and is a direct intervention of God’s will.
President Sisi once stated during one of the sessions of the Fourth National Youth Conference that “terrorism and population growth are the two biggest threats in Egypt’s history.”
The current population of Egypt is 100,710,246 as of Saturday, August 31, 2019, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
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