New figures released by the United Nations predicts that the Egyptian population will hit 200 million by the year 2100, according to the BBC.
The problem with population growth in Egypt is not new. The Egyptian population has been growing in an uncontrolled way for years, according to a statement read by General Abu Bakr al-Gindi, head of Egypt’s official statistics agency Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), in 2014.
According to the statement, 2013 saw record growth rates, with the number of new births reaching 2.6 million. The biggest problem with this boom, according to the statement, is its timing.
The Egyptian government in 2014 was having difficulty accommodating even the existing population, failing to provide their basic needs.
The government has used this problem for a long time to justify any economic and social failures that have occurred in Egypt throughout the years. In October, in a speech given by PM Sherif Ismail, he pointed out that population growth is one of the biggest challenges hindering development in Egypt, according to Egyptian Streets.
“In all honesty, the biggest challenge that we should be combating is population growth; especially after we reached an unprecedented increase that would affect what has been accomplished in terms of economic growth,” the Prime Minister said, as quoted by Ahram Online.
Though he pointed out that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi had a “comprehensive plan” to combat the problem of drastic population increase, Ismail never specified what this plan consisted of.
However, there has been a slight decrease in population growth rates in recent years: the annual growth rate decreased from 2.3 percent in 2013 to 2 percent in 2016, according to Egyptian Streets.
