Africa’s high birth rate is keeping the continent poor
Print edition | Middle East and Africa
Sep 22nd 2018
JOHN MAGUFULI, the president of Tanzania, has strong views about birth control. He does not see the point. In 2016 he announced that state schools would be free, and, as a result, women could throw away their contraceptives. On September 9th this year he told a rally that birth control was a sign of parental laziness. Tanzania must not follow Europe, he went on, where one “side effect” of widespread contraception is a shrinking labour force...
....Progress depends mostly on African politicians. It falls to them to create more and better schools, provide security for their people and invest in family planning. They, not foreign observers, need to conclude that their countries would be wealthier if they had rather fewer children. Like so much in Africa, almost everything depends on the quality of government. And that, sadly, is hard to decree.
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Wamemalizia kwa kusema DECREE, au ma amri amri na matamko tamko ya tawala za kina Magufuli wa Afrika, hayawezi kubadilisha ubora wa serikali zetu, na kwa bahati mbaya kila kitu Afrika kinategemea ubora wa serikali.
Print edition | Middle East and Africa
Sep 22nd 2018
JOHN MAGUFULI, the president of Tanzania, has strong views about birth control. He does not see the point. In 2016 he announced that state schools would be free, and, as a result, women could throw away their contraceptives. On September 9th this year he told a rally that birth control was a sign of parental laziness. Tanzania must not follow Europe, he went on, where one “side effect” of widespread contraception is a shrinking labour force...
....Progress depends mostly on African politicians. It falls to them to create more and better schools, provide security for their people and invest in family planning. They, not foreign observers, need to conclude that their countries would be wealthier if they had rather fewer children. Like so much in Africa, almost everything depends on the quality of government. And that, sadly, is hard to decree.
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Wamemalizia kwa kusema DECREE, au ma amri amri na matamko tamko ya tawala za kina Magufuli wa Afrika, hayawezi kubadilisha ubora wa serikali zetu, na kwa bahati mbaya kila kitu Afrika kinategemea ubora wa serikali.