The Impact of the Population Explosion in the Middle East and Africa

One of the most destabilizing factors in the world today, and one of the greatest long-term threats to global security, is the dramatic rise in the population of the combined regions of the Middle East and Africa.  From Africa’s Atlantic Coast in the west to Central Asia in the east, populations have been expanding at a rapid pace over the past few decades.  At present, 2.2 billion people live in these two regions, double the number that lived there just 40 years ago.  Moreover, by the year 2050, Africa and the Middle East will be home to 3.4 billion people, more than the combined populations of China and India at that time.  Such dramatic population growth will undoubtedly have a massive impact on the environment, economy and stability of these regions.  Moreover, as we have already seen, this rapid population growth is having a destabilizing impact on neighboring regions, particularly Europe. 

In previous years, the region consisting of the Middle East and North Africa had been experiencing the fastest population growth in the world, and birth rates in many countries in this region remain relatively high.  In 1950, the combined population of the Middle East and North Africa was just 104 million, or just one-fifth the population of neighboring Europe.  However, the population of this region is now approaching 500 million, or nearly 70% of Europe’s total population.  Moreover, by the year 2050, the Middle East and North Africa is forecast to have a population of nearly 750 million, a larger population than Europe by that point in time. 

There are a number of reasons why this population growth in this region is of particular concern.  First, much of this population growth is now concentrated in the region’s poorest countries, such as Yemen and Egypt.  Second, most economies in this region are based on natural resource extraction, an industry that does not create large numbers of jobs for the region’s burgeoning working-age population.  Third, the Middle East and North Africa lacks resources such as water and arable land that are needed to sustain such a large population.  As a result, population growth and resource scarcity are combining to fuel instability and emigration in the region, as we have already witnessed in places such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya.

In recent years, Sub-Saharan Africa has emerged as the region with the fastest-growing population in the world.  In 1950, 176 million people lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly all of them lived in rural areas.  Today, the population of this region has reached one billion, and many of these people live in what are now the world’s fastest-growing cities.  In fact, many people from outside of the region are surprised to learn of the size of the populations of countries such as Nigeria (187 million), Ethiopia (102 million) or Congo (80 million).  By the year 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to be home to nearly two billion people, or nearly three times the population of Europe. 

Obviously, this dramatic population growth will place great strains on the region’s resources and stability, particularly as this population growth will be highest in the region’s poorest countries.  Moreover, the infrastructure in place in Sub-Saharan Africa is largely inadequate for its one billion inhabitants, let alone the additional one billion people that will call the region home over the next three decades.  As a result, there is a strong possibility that this dramatic expansion of the region’s population will also fuel conflict and emigration in the years and decades ahead.

The greatest impact of this population explosion in the Middle East and Africa will be felt in these regions, as population-related pressures will continue to mount.  With birth rates that remain extremely high, most countries in this region will have populations that are far younger than those anywhere else in the world.  This will result in the urgent need for hundreds of millions of jobs to be created in the coming years, although where these jobs will come from remains very uncertain.  Likewise, massive investments in the region’s infrastructure will be needed, particularly in the region’s dramatically expanding cities.  In a few decades, cities such as Kinshasa, Lagos and Cairo will be among the largest cities in the world, but each of them is ill-equipped to deal with such massive populations.  Finally, resources such as water and land will be stretched ever more thinly, something that is likely to fuel conflicts and instability in those areas of the Middle East and Africa where such resources are in short supply and where population growth continues unabated. 

While many political leaders outside of the Middle East and Africa view this demographic explosion as a problem that they can avoid, the fact is that this issue has the ability to have a massive impact on neighboring regions in the coming years.  Already, opposition to immigration from these regions is fueling the surge in populism and protectionism that is having such as major impact on politics in places such as Europe and North America.  Moreover, there is little doubt that population growth has played key role in creating the wars that are ongoing in the Middle East and Africa, many of which have forced outside powers to intervene.  Already, we have seen a dramatic increase in immigration into Europe from high-population-growth areas of the Middle East and North Africa, and the recent surge in this migration could prove to be just the tip of the iceberg as the combined population of the Middle East and Africa comes to dwarf that of Europe in the coming decades.  Moreover, other regions such as East Asia could also see a surge in migration from these regions as their populations soar. 

Of course, this population explosion does not have to be all doom and gloom.  For example, the slowing population growth in most areas of the world is a key reason why the global economy has been growing at a relatively sluggish pace in recent years.  As such, the huge increase in the working-age (and consuming-age) populations in the Middle East and Africa might provide exporters and investors from around the world with their greatest growth opportunities in the coming years.  However, a greater integration into the global economy for these regions will be needed, and this will only occur if stability can be established across most, if not all, of the Middle East and Africa.