Africa should account for 58% of the world's population growth by 2050. This was indicated by Population Reference Bureau (PRB) in its reports titled “World Population Data Sheet 2018”.

According to the document, the African population will be more than twice its number by 2050 and reach 2.6 billion people.

With this demographic boom, the world population should be 9.9 billion citizens by the period mentioned above, a growth by 29% compared to the current population estimated at 7.6 billion.

The report indicates that though the Total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped in many countries in the past years, in countries such as Niger (7.2), Chad (6.4) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.3), it remains high and leads to continuous demographic growth.   

Let’s note that the percentage of the older population should continue to grow (16% will be 65 and older by 2050) in the world but, this percentage will be higher in developed countries (27%) than in the least developed ones (14%). According to the experts, countries’ politics and economic performance will be greatly influenced by the changing age structure.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou