P O P U L A T I O N T R E N D S I N
S U B - S A H A R A N A F R I C A
Sub-Saharan Africa (sSA) is already experiencing climate change impacts which are, year on year, becoming more intense and frequent than ever. This is reinforcing poverty, affecting more than 40% of the region’s 360 million people. Several studies have reported severe consequences of climate extreme events on the agricultural sector, which is the main source of livelihood for many people in sSA. A rapidly growing population across the whole of the region is setting the scene for a perfect storm. The consequences of +3°C in sSA are unimaginable.
Tanzanian farmer with drought-affected maize
Let's start by looking at the whole of Africa.
Source: Worldometer (www.Worldometers.info) Data by United Nations, Population Division.
Table 1
By 2050, Africa will account for 25% of the world's population; by 2100 it will be 40%
By 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world, larger than the USA.
In the next 50 years, Africa's urban population will triple.
By 2050, one third of all the children on Earth will live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tighten your seat belt. There’s a lot to discuss, none of it encouraging.
Population: From 1960 to 2024, the world’s population increased by a factor of 2.7. Africa’s increased by a factor of 5.4.
Yearly % change (growth rate): From 1960 to 2024, the world’s mean growth rate fell from 1.93% to 0.87%. Africa’s remains largely unchanged at 2.32%.
Yearly change: Africa added a staggering 34,370,324 people to its population in 2024. That’s equivalent to the population of Ghana. A new Ghana in one year!
Median age (half the population are older, half are younger) - this needs another table; a few examples of global median age to boggle your mind.
"Median age – The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency.
Table 2
As a rule, median age is highest in high-income countries and lowest in developing countries with lower incomes. Table 5 lists the median age of the world’s 20 poorest countries by GDP per capita. (2024).
18 of these countries lie in sub-Saharan Africa.
"Median age – The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency.
Table 3
The relevance of these figures to climate change will shortly become clear. Read on.
In 2020, 47 sub-Saharan Africa (sSA) children under the age of one died for every 1,000 live births. This is termed infant mortality. This had fallen dramatically since 1955 when infant mortality in the region was 183. Compare this with the UK’s figure of 3.9.
The decrease in infant mortality was largely due to the expansion of healthcare services such as immunisation, improvements in nutrition and access to clean drinking water. One might expect, therefore, that the fertility rates in sSA countries would fall with women chosing to have fewer children which is exactly what is happening. It’s dropped from 6.5 in 1965 to around 4.5 in 2020. So why the fall in median age? Surely if women are having fewer children, the percentage of children in the population should fall. Instead, in sSA it’s increasing.
It is estimated that by 2050, 770 million children will live in sub-Saharan Africa, more than twice the current population of the USA
When the UN were making predictions about the fall in fertility rates post-2000 in Africa, they failed to take into account the cultural traditions of rural communities in sSA. Among these are early first marriage and first birth rates (how soon in her marriage a woman gives birth) together with rapid remarriage. Add to this the very checkered educational progress in outlying areas together with continued high rates of infant mortality (47 is still very high) leading parents to continue to have large families. Access to contraception in sSA has been poor with considerable unmet demand in rural areas and poor communities. Moreover, family planning programs were given very low priority at the beginning of the 21st century.
All this has added up to a continued high fertility rate and a high percentage of young people in the population. In just a few years, these young people will become parents. Many parents, many children, large population increase leading inevitably to a large demand for electricity, transport, livestock agriculture, waste disposal, deforestation, and building. These are the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the very sources which, in the developed world, are responsible for the vast majority of climate change today.
At the other end of the agespan, life expectancy in sSA has risen dramatically. Looking at life expectancy across the globe, you might be forgiven for thinking sSA’s is very low (orange/red) and therefore having little impact on population growth.
It is low compared to developed countries (world average is 72) but between 1980 and 2000, life expectancy in sSA increased from 46 to 56 years, a 22% increase in just 20 years. That extra 10 years has fuelled enormous population growth and, together with high fertility rates, will continue to do so for decades to come. By 2050, Africa’s population is forecast to reach 2.4 billion and by 2100 4.2 billion. That’s four times its current population! These are staggering numbers but the 2100 figure should be taken with a very large pinch of salt since it takes no account of climate change. Even without this enormous elephant in the room, sSA with its rapidly growing populations will have to channel more resources into welfare to meet the basic needs (food, housing, education) of a younger, initially unproductive population. Here lies the crunch: the dependency ratio. The number of economically dependent people per 100 economically active people. Generally, people aged under 16 and over 64 are considered dependents. Currently there are around 82 dependents per 100 working age people in sSA. In Niger, the dependents number 105 per 100. In the EU for comparison, age dependency is just 32 per 100.
A growing population needs growing employment opportunities. With little employment capacity in rural areas, sub-Saharan Africans are flooding into cities. By 2025, 1.26 billion people will live in sSA cities. With 50% of urban populations already living in slums, the outlook looks grim. Unemployment, persistent poverty and political unrest already plague Africa. When the full effects of climate change sweep across the continent in the near future, millions of despairing families will head north, desperately seeking the basic necessities of life, migration on a scale we have not yet witnessed.
In conclusion, the 21st Century will witness shrinking populations in developed, wealthy countries and growing populations mainly in Africa’s poorest countries. At some point, these trends will cancel each other out and world population growth will cease. The problem we face together with every other species on the planet is simply that we cannot wait for the causes of climate change to slowly wind down. We don’t have 10 miles of clear water ahead of us. By 2085 (the earliest estimates for zero global population growth), the full impact of climate change will already be wreaking havoc across the planet with sub-Saharan Africa in the eye of the storm.
It is not difficult to worry about each of my grandchildren. I only have four. But there are hundreds of millions of children in sSA who are growing up facing a future plagued with insecurity.
Read more about the worrying projections concerning Africa and its future population growth in this excellent article in Geographical titled 'What does rapid population growth mean for the world’s poorest continent?'