By Will Rasmussen
CAIRO (Reuters) - Red and white banners along Nile bridgesand Cairo streets this month were Egypt's latest effort to curban increasingly pressing problem: a population growing fasterthan the economy can support.
Since President Hosni Mubarak took office in 1981, thepopulation has nearly doubled. But most of the country's 76million people are squashed in urban areas near the Nile, in anarea roughly the size of Switzerland, which is home to just 7.5million.
"Before you add another baby, make sure his needs aresecured," ran the slogan, adding to a string of campaigns over30 years to encourage family planning. Mubarak told agovernment-sponsored population conference that cuttingpopulation growth was urgent.
With about one fifth of the population living on less than50 pence a day and food and fuel prices lifting inflation to a19-year high, discontent is mounting. But beyond domesticconcerns, Egypt could become a poster-child for a global trend.
According to the United Nations, the poor are set to bemore and more numerous by 2050 and many will be living in townsas the world population climbs to a total of 9.2 billion.Essentially all the growth will be in less developed countries.
Egypt -- where the divide between rich and poor is starkand resistance to targeted birth control common -- shows howthat could happen.
"Impossible," said Cairo taxi-driver and father-of-fiveMohammed Ahmed, waving a cigarette in the air for emphasis whenasked about Mubarak's appeal to slow population growth. "Thatis for God to decide."
Around 38 percent of Egyptians are younger than 15, andaccording to the World Bank, women make up only around 22percent of the labour force, so the incentive for birth controlis weak.
Population growth has remained stubbornly high at around 2percent for the last decade and the fertility rate, at about3.1 children per woman -- compared with 2.1 in the UnitedStates -- has also been stable.
Lacking the oil reserves of their Gulf Arab neighbours tofund investment, Egypt's recent economic growth at around 7percent has not been steady enough to build a significantmiddle class.
"The population explosion is a crisis the governmentdoesn't know how to handle," said Milad Hanna, a former memberof parliament and a columnist at the state-owned newspaperal-Ahram.
DEPENDENT ON NILE
While lamenting the strain on the country's limitedresources -- especially of water and fertile land in a countrywhere rainfall is almost zero -- the government has avoidedusing incentives or punitive policies to modify behaviour.
Firm measures such as restricting maternity benefits forthose with large families, which helped Iran sharply slow itspopulation growth during the 1990s, would be politicallydangerous in Egypt, where there have already been protests overfood shortages, said Hanna.
Egypt is not about to legalize abortion, which has helpedTunisia bring down its fertility levels, and vasectomy,commonly practiced in Iran, is barely heard of in Egypt.
Egyptians, especially in the countryside, view largefamilies as a source of economic strength. Many will continuebearing children until they have a boy.
"The population will continue to grow and the governmentcan only make an appeal," Hanna said.
The outlook for both Egypt and the region will be grave ifthe most populous Arab country continues to grow at currentrates, Egyptian and U.N. officials say.
"The consequences are a real deterioration in the qualityof life and in agricultural land per person," said MaguedOsman, chairman of the cabinet's Information and DecisionSupport Center. "We are depending heavily on imported fooditems and this will increase."
If levels of growth don't slow, Mubarak says Egypt'spopulation could double to 160 million by 2050. But Egypt'sgovernment hopes it can be stabilized at 100 million, Osmansaid: "More than that will be difficult."
In the absence of significant rainfall the greatestconstraint is Egypt's dependence on the waters of the Nile, forwhich it has to compete against rival demands upstream.
Egypt already uses more than its quota of Nile water, 55.5billion cubic meters a year, and might have to cut back onconsumption if Sudan uses more or if other Nile Basincountries, such as Ethiopia and Uganda, divert more water forthemselves.
In a 1959 treaty, Egypt and Sudan agreed to take almost allthe Nile's flow for themselves, leaving out other Nile basinstates, who have not agreed to respect it.
In the meantime the Egyptian government is moving Nilewater deep into the desert, both for urban development and towater reclaimed agricultural land to grow more food.
Moving out of the Nile valley is the obvious choice torelieve the crowding in places like Cairo, where some districtshold 41,000 people per square km. Manhattan, by comparison, hasabout 27,000 people per square km.
But some experts question whether a $70 billion governmentplan to reclaim 3.4 million acres of desert over the next 10years -- which Egypt continues to push ahead with -- isfeasible given constraints on water.
MIGRANTS SEEK JOBS ABROAD
Ziad Rifai, Egypt representative for the United NationsPopulation Fund, said continuing high population growth inEgypt could affect neighbouring countries.
"If the general welfare of the people goes below a certainthreshold, it affects stability in the region and it affectsmigration," he said. "The worse the conditions get, the easierit is for extremism to flourish."
Tens of thousands of Egyptians a year try to reach Europe,Libya or the Gulf countries in search of jobs at wages thatthey cannot find at home. Many die at sea on the way to Europe.
Mubarak tends to avoid mentioning a specific number ofchildren but the government says it prefers a family with two.
Announcing a number would be wrong, said Ali Abdelatif, 34,a security guard who supports two children on about $70 permonth.
"My wife gets pregnant very easily," he said, smiling. "Soit's okay to use birth control for the sake of her health, butspecifying a number of kids -- that is forbidden."
Although clerics in the country, which is about 90 percentMuslim, generally allow contraception, many disagree withtargeting a specific number of children.
Birth control for fear of poverty or to prevent conceptionpermanently is unlawful under Islam, according to a fatwa, orIslamic edict on Islam Online, a popular forum for Islamicrulings.
"From a religious point of view I am against the call ofPresident Mubarak," said Salim Awwa, secretary general of theinfluential International Union for Muslim Scholars. "The stateis not God and the state is not the creator. We should not tryto limit the number of children."
(Editing by Keith Weir and Sara Ledwith)
