Rapid Population Growth of the Sahel Region: How UNFPA Got It Right

Wanjohi Kabukuru

For many years, the UN population agency, the United Nations Population Fund, struggled to understand the paradox behind the Sahel’s and equatorial Africa’s fastest rising population with little success.

As of 2016 the region’s population, had bulged to 414 million people straddling across more than 20 countries.

Statistics from the World Bank, which has been involved in supporting demographic interventions in the Sahel, indicates that the combined population of the 23 countries in the Sahel and Equatorial Africa will reach one billion by 2050.

Having the highest fertility rate at five children per woman with an annual population growth of three per cent globally, the region has been classified as having the highest dependency ratio globally, at 87.2% for the age groups Zero to 65.

The population is predominantly young, with almost 60% under the age of 24.

These demographics worried both the UN technocrats and respective governments