Is Tanzania's rapid population growth a boon or pitfall?
Public transport in Dar es Salaam. The city faces traffic jam nightmare. PHOTO | SAID KHALFAN | AFP
What you need to know:
- In a country where it is projected that the population will hit 151.2 million in 2050, President Hassan warned that it needs to start preparing development projects for these people and make necessary reforms in its policies to match the current numbers.
- Experience from other countries shows that such rapid population growth could undermine social services such as education and health, especially in the face of unstable expenditure on healthcare in the improvement of child survival.
Tanzania, the second largest country among East African Community member states and the 13th in Africa, has posted tremendous population growth from 44.9 million in 2012 to 61.7 million in 2022.
The figures from the census report announced by President Samia Suluhu Hassan on October 31 reflected an annual increase of 3.2 percent in the last 10 years. That rate of growth shows that Tanzania’s population is projected to increase to about 68 million by 2025.
The question analysts are asking is whether such a rapid population explosion could promote economic growth or lead to increased poverty.
President Hassan was bullish that such a population might not be a big deal for a huge country like Tanzania with an area of 945,203 square kilometres, but “it is a burden when it comes to allocating resources and delivering social services”.
In a country where it is projected that the population will hit 151.2 million in 2050, President Hassan warned that it needs to start preparing development projects for these people and make necessary reforms in its policies to match the current numbers.
Experience from other countries shows that such rapid population growth could undermine social services such as education and health, especially in the face of unstable expenditure on healthcare in the improvement of child survival.
Health sector
According to the post-budget analysis in June, Deloitte noted that the health financing system of Tanzania depends primarily on tax revenues, support from development partners, out-of-pocket payments, and private and social insurance for health service users. Fortunately, Tanzania has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the region, at 2.65 percent in 2021.
In the budget read in June, the finance minister sought to redirect public spending not only towards development projects but also social services (such as health and education) and supporting the vulnerable segment of the population. Tanzania recorded a 4.9 percent growth in GDP in 2021
A report from the IMF in August said that Tanzania’s budgetary allocations and implementation need to accommodate the increasing demands for social services. A sufficiently financed education policy, a well-functioning health system, and a strong safety net will be crucial to promote sustainable and equitable growth and development.
As the second largest country in the EAC after the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania's population density stands at 69.43 inhabitants per square kilometre. According to estimates by Statista, roughly 130 million inhabitants might live in Tanzania by 2050.
Following the 2022 census, the population of Dar-es-Salaam hit 5.4 million, becoming the most densely populated in the EAC. Similarly, Zanzibar’s population increased by 600,000 to reach 1.9 million people. Dar es Salaam is Africa’s fifth-largest city in population.
"Because of this rapid growth, the city faces serious congestion and mobility challenges, which are worsened by an undeveloped road network," said President Hassan.
Dar es Salaam
A World Bank report published in 2019 showed that Dar es Salaam is one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa, and with a potential growth rate of 6.5 percent, it is expected to reach 10 million residents by 2030.
Tanzania has numerous natural resources, only second to the DRC. Mining in Tanzania includes gold, iron ore, nickel, copper, cobalt, silver, industrial minerals such as diamonds, tanzanite, ruby, garnet, limestone, soda ash, gypsum, salt, phosphate, gravel, sand, dimension stones and graphite, and the fuel minerals coal and uranium.
Since 2015, when the late president John Pombe Magufuli embarked on reforming the mining sector and rooting out cartels, mining has contributed about $4.2 billion to the economy.
But an estimated 48 million people, comprising 80 percent of the total population, derive their livelihood from agriculture, and mainly from subsistence farming that does not create sufficient jobs.
The spike in population now forces the Hassan administration to come up with new mechanisms to boost the agricultural sector, even though Tanzania is relatively food-secure compared with Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.
Tanzania has to invest more in agriculture to guard against rural-urban migration in the face of a population explosion.
Arable land
Within the EAC, Tanzania has 13.5 million hectares of arable land, third after DRC with 80 million, and South Sudan, with 90 million. Uganda has 6,900,000 hectares of arable land, Kenya (5,800,000) Burundi (1,200,000), and Rwanda (1,151,700).
This means that Tanzania has huge potential in the agricultural sector. A report by ResearchGate released in July says that Tanzania could be a major food-exporting country in the region, but its dependence on rainfall, poor transport and marketing infrastructures, as well as low access to technology, leads to persistent food security problems.
The Tanzanian government has decided to focus its Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP) on irrigation. The shift to large-scale irrigation could reduce Tanzania’s dependency on rain-fed agriculture.
