Today marks the World Population Day, an annual reminder of global population issues and the challenges that humanity is facing due to overpopulation. 

Considering this, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in Egypt has announced last week, on July 5th, that Egypt’s population has increased by a million citizens within nine months and five days. Thus, the total population has reached 102 million. 

It is worth noting that the population is currently growing at a rate of 1.94%, a rate that adds around 2 million people to the population per year. According to the current projections, it’s expected that Egypt’s population will increase by double in 2078. 

What does this increase in population pose to Egypt?

This rapid raising in population poses a serious threat to the country’s economy, where ⅓ of people live below the poverty line in parallel to the 10% rate of unemployment in Egypt. 

 If this population increase continues, the country might face difficulties supporting this massive number of people, and national production would be insufficient to meet their needs, which will cause the country to depend on imports and further put a burden on the economy.

Overpopulation also negatively affects the country’s efforts in achieving the SDGs, which is the core of Egypt’s 2030 vision. This increase will not allow the achievement of the required welfare for people, and it’ll be difficult for the sustainable, comprehensive development to have a positive impact in light of this crazy rise in population numbers.

Additionally, overpopulation is causing several problems, such as higher rates of pollution, increased crime rates, and a significant problem in the per capita share of water and the erosion of agricultural land due to urban sprawl.

Despite these challenges, Egypt is spending efforts in overcoming this issue

 The Ministry of Social Solidarity launched the “2 Enough” initiative to reduce the population increase among families benefiting from the “تكافل وكرامة” project. This campaign organized a set of seminars to raise awareness of the dangers of overpopulation at a rate of 4 seminars per month. The government also aims, through its programs, to control population growth and provide free family planning and reproductive health services and means, especially in rural areas.