CAIRO -
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi attaches great importance to the issue of overpopulation and considers it the "mother of problems" in Egyptian society, which is responsible for the deterioration of health and education services and the state's obstacle to economic growth.
During the launch of the National Family Development Project at the Al-Massa International Conference Center in the New Administrative Capital, Sisi raised the idea of postponing childbearing for new couples for a year or two until they adapt to the new family situation.
He called on newly married women to wait a year or two before deciding to become pregnant and have children until they get used to the new home and its requirements and feel the ability to adapt, and absorb the new situation so that there is no conflict and then divorce with a child, adding, "I did that (also) with my daughter."
Al-Sisi considered that the growth rates are not commensurate with the population increase, and that there is a accumulated deficit over the past 50 and 60 years, and that it is the reason for the deterioration of the economic situation, noting that the population has increased by 14 million since he took office in mid-2014.
“Take a chance for a year or two that you are used to the house and its demands before the caliphate.” President Sisi advises young people who are about to get married ⬇🎥#TeNTV pic.twitter.com/8BO5cvBKlY
— TeN TV (@TeNTVEG) February 28, 2022
national project
The (National Project for the Development of the Egyptian Family 2021-2023), which Sisi called for in January of last year, focuses on the basic social issues and concerns of the family from all aspects of health, social, family, economic and other aspects.
The project plan, which will be implemented over a period of 3 years from 2021 to 2023, includes working on several economic, service, cultural, legislative, media and awareness axes, and includes all parts of the Republic, such as:
Economic empowerment of women in the age group from 18 to 45 years by providing job and livelihood opportunities, and achieving financial independence.
Providing free family planning methods to all, with continuous follow-up.
Establishing an electronic system to automate the services of the Family Insurance Fund, linking them to the Family Health and Development Units, and another to evaluate the performance of the plan.
Raising citizens' awareness of the basic concepts of the population issue, and the social and economic effects of overpopulation.
Establishing a government fund for family insurance and development, which grants incentives to families committed to the determinants of population growth control.
President Sisi: People are saying in the street that I am upset with you and I have 6 children..This was my response ⬇#TeNTV pic.twitter.com/UUZTBHBUNr
— TeN TV (@TeNTVEG) February 28, 2022
population clock
The population of Egypt inside reached (103 million) on Tuesday, 22/2/2022, according to what was announced by the Population Clock of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, which is linked to the births and death registration database at the Ministry of Health and Population.
Preliminary data showed that the number of registered births for 2021, according to electronic registration data, amounted to 2.159 million, a decrease of about 76,000 births compared to 2020, and a decrease of only 3%.
This body believes that the continuation of high levels of childbearing (2.9 children per woman) will lead to an increase in the population to 124 million people in 2032, compared to 117 million if childbearing levels drop to 1.6 children per woman.
Does society accept the idea of postponing childbearing?
Al-Sisi raised the issue of population increase as a crisis in society that devours any development efforts, but it is not new, but does postponing the decision to have children at the beginning of married life help control the population increase, and does society accept the idea of postponing childbearing in light of the well-established societal heritage?
Professor of Sociology at Ain Shams University, Dr. Samia Khader, believes that Egypt is a young country, meaning that the proportion of young people is close to 25% of the population, "but we suffer from a high rate of illiteracy, which has decreased to about 25%, and therefore it is an increase that constitutes a burden on the national economy and generates many It is one of the economic and social challenges, and represents a major challenge to the state’s continuous efforts in the field of development.”
And she considered, in her speech to Al Jazeera Net, that any development will be devoured by the population increase, despite all the efforts made by the president in all areas, which will not be reflected positively and clearly on the citizen's standard of living, stressing that one hand is not enough and the influence of the soft powers represented by In the cultural and development works that affect the awareness of citizens and bring positive results in achieving the desired, and therefore this neglected role must be maximized.
Khader considered that postponing childbearing at the beginning of marriage is a good idea, and that she applied it at the beginning of her married, academic and practical life and succeeded in balancing matters, but she excluded people from responding to it as required due to the high rate of illiteracy, the dominance of the societal heritage, and the spread of the culture of early childbearing in the countryside.
#Ninth_Bulletin |
#President_Al-Sisi The population increase is not in line with the state's ability to grow pic.twitter.com/a1ONU2vTTe
- Egyptian Channel One (@channel1eg) February 28, 2022
Incentives, benefits and law on the way
In turn, Professor of Sociology, Dr. Ahmed Magdy, supported the idea of postponing childbearing.
He said, in a press statement, that postponing childbearing for a year or two will actually help reduce the population, because marriage must be stable first, and this does not happen in the first year of marriage, in which relations between spouses begin to appear better through Exposing them to problems.
For her part, Deputy Representative of the Small Projects Committee in the House of Representatives, Representative Hala Abu Al-Saad, described the population problem as a “fatal issue.” She said in press statements, “It is time to finalize the population increase law,” noting that the parliamentary committees finished discussing it in the presence of all relevant governmental and ministerial parties. She very much welcomed this law.
In turn, Dr. Tariq Tawfiq, Deputy Minister of Health for Population Affairs, revealed, during a telephone interview with a local television program, "that there is a draft program for deferred positive incentives with the aim of changing women's motives to increase children."
A blessing not a curse
On the other hand, a former member of the Parliament’s Housing Committee, Azab Mustafa, does not agree with assigning the population increase to the deterioration of the economic situation, the low level of health and educational services and the deterioration of infrastructure, saying, “Corruption is the cause of all of the above, not the population increase, and the country’s management is based on the mentality of collection and not production.”
He assured Al Jazeera Net that the population increase is a positive issue, not a negative, but the real problem lies in considering it a burden on the economy, and it will remain so as long as the regimes view it as a burden and not as a human force in need of wise management and rational policies that direct it and exploit it optimally and in a better way, but there are countries that offer Incentives to increase childbearing.
Azab expected that all efforts aimed at reducing the population or delaying childbearing would fail because the majority of citizens did not trust the promises and performance of successive governments. He wondered: Even if population growth stops, is the state able to provide a comfortable life for 103 million citizens?
Interactions
Citizens interacted with Sisi’s statements about population increase, but as usual, they were divided between supporters of the president’s claim that it is the real reason for the citizen’s lack of awareness of the achievements on the ground, and opponents who emphasized that the issue is used by the regimes over time to justify their failure to improve level of its citizens.
Excuses are not acceptable:
If the price increase is inevitable and continuous, then wages and pensions must be increased by no less than 30% for those whose income is less than 10 thousand.
The argument of population increase and lack of resources existed in the days of Abdel Nasser and the population was only 10 million.
We must learn from the countries that have overcome this the problem
— mohammed a karim (@mohammedakarim3) February 28, 2022
As the president said today,
the basis of our problem is overpopulation
— Mona M00n (@MonaElsied5) February 28, 2022
Overpopulation is the peg of failure at all times and with all systems
— Ibrahim Motamed Aoun Zamalkawi (@tot278HHabjtYiF) February 28, 2022
They were basically announcing the state's strategy for the development of the Egyptian family, including confronting the population increase. The president was talking about the problem in order to raise awareness and make the problem more visible, even if not all people will hear or understand, but the solutions have already been developed and announced today, and implementation and success remains, God willing.
- Doaa Egypt D1 (@masrdarelsalam) February 28, 2022
The GDP of Egypt = the third Arab and very close to the national product of the UAE,
but after dividing by the population = the tenth Arab and the share of the Egyptian citizen is equal to 10%.
The share of the citizen in the Emirates
has reached….
Continuing population growth is a disaster and no one will feel the development and new services that have also been developed
— amr hamdon 🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬 (@amrhamdon) February 28, 2022