COUNTRY BRIEFING: FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

The World Bank reckons that the global population will reach 7.2bn people by 2015. Of that total, the MENA region will account for just 6.7%. Although a small proportion, it represents an increase over the 6.5% recorded for 2006. The forecasts reflect expected population growth rates for MENA states over the coming years, which in some instances are high compared with countries outside the region.
The Bank’s forecasts, which are found in the 2008 edition of its World Development Indicators, also indicate that Yemen will record MENA’s strongest annual population growth rate for the 2006-2015 period. The forecast for that country is 2.9%, which implies that the population will double in less than a quarter of a century. The forecast for the West Bank and Gaza is also a relatively high 2.5%, which puts doubling time for that population at 28 years. In both of these cases, water is already scarce, and without the financial resources for desalination, these high rates of population growth will put considerable pressure on water supplies.
The UAE rounds off the top three countries in the region with the strongest forecast population growth rates. The World Bank puts the UAE’s 2006-2015 growth rate at 2.4%, giving that country a population doubling time of 29 years. In this case, migrant worker movements almost certainly influence the World Bank’s robust forecast. The Bank’s data suggests that these movements have been a factor in the past—the UAE had the highest rate of population growth in the region for the 1990-2006 period, at a massive 5.5% per annum. If this growth was based solely on local birth rates, then the expectation would be that young people would make up a high proportion of the population. But World Bank figures suggest in fact that nearly 80% of the population in the UAE is of working age, compared to most other MENA states where the figure is less than 70%.
The World Bank forecasts suggest that six other MENA—Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Kuwait—will have population growth rates of at least 2%. As with the UAE, the population expansion in the other Gulf states no doubt reflects expatriate labour flows. In addition, in all six cases, the growth rates are probably also influenced by social norms which encourage large families. Such norms may, however, be shifting. In Jordan, for example, the population growth rate for the 1990-2006 period was a substantial 3.5%, but the Bank forecasts that it will drop to a much more modest 2.2% for the 2006-2015 period.
For the remaining nine MENA states included in the World Bank survey, the growth rate is forecast to drop compared with the 1990-2006 period. The change is particularly marked in Turkey, which currently has the biggest population in the MENA region. But with its forecast population growth rate at just 1.2%, Turkey’s total population will, by 2015, fall behind that of Egypt, where the population is forecast to grow at a faster 1.7% annually. Turkey will remain the second-largest country in MENA.
Head count
Total mid-year population; m
2006 2015 (a)
Turkey 73.0 81.0
Egypt 72.2 86.2
Iran 70.1 78.9
Sudan 37.7 45.6
Algeria 33.4 38.0
Morocco 30.5 33.9
Saudi Arabia 23.7 28.5
Yemen 21.7 28.2
Syria 19.4 23.5
Tunisia 10.1 11.2
Israel 7.0 8.0
Libya 6.0 7.1
Jordan 5.5 6.8
UAE 4.2 5.3
Lebanon 4.1 4.4
West Bank and Gaza 3.8 4.7
Kuwait 2.6 3.2
Oman 2.5 3.0
MENA totals (b) 427.5 497.5
(a)
(b)
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2008.