Uganda’s high population growth causes economic problems: minister
KAMPALA, July 11 (Xinhua) — Ugandan Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Gerald Ssendaula said on Sunday that high population growth will have an impact on the country’s resources and cause economic problems.
The minister made the remarks in his statement to mark the World Population Day which falls on July 11.
Ssendaula said that “we need to plan for our rapidly increasing population, currently at a growth rate of 3.4 percent per annum with a fertility rate of 6.9 children per woman.”
“This population growth rate is the highest in the region. If this trend continues unchecked, our population will double in just 20 years from now,” the minister warned.
He reminded his countrymen that “results of the 1991 census showed that Uganda had a total population of 16.7 million people,” adding that “this rapidly rose to 24.7 million in 2002 census. Today, Uganda’s population stands at 26.6 million people.”
“This means that there has been an increase of 10 million people in a space of only 13 years. This rapid increase has serious and disastrous implications for the provision of services and infrastructure especially in the fields of health, education, land for food production, among others,” the minister said.
He stressed that “our ability to maintain or even improve such services and infrastructure is going to be that much more difficult and is likely to strain our national poverty eradication efforts.”
This year’s World Population Day marks the mid-point of the 20- year Cairo Program of Action. Some 11,000 participants from over 180 states and various agencies and organizations attended the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo.
The ICPD passed a 20-year action plan on issues of population and development, with three major thematic goals: reduction of infant, child and maternal mortality; provision of universal access to education particularly for girls; and provision of universal access to a full range of reproductive health care and family planning services.
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