Regions to watch as census results set to be released

Dar es Salaam. With the government expected to release results of the 2022 Population and Housing Census on Saturday, analysts will be looking at data from five regions with keen interest.

The Commissioner for 2022 Population and Housing Census, Ms Anne Makinda, said earlier this month that results of the exercise, which was conducted in August, would be released on October 22.

An analysis by The Citizen shows that of particular interest will be population growth rates in Simiyu, Geita, Mwanza, Mara and North Pemba.

The five regions have the highest population growth rates in the country, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures.

In its Tanzania in Figures, 2021 report, NBS put the annual population increase in Simiyu and Geita at 5.0 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Mwanza and Mara tie at 4.1 percent, while Pemba North and Pemba South are fifth and sixth with 4.0 and 3.9 percent, respectively. This is far beyond the average national annual growth rate of 2.9 percent.

In absolute numbers, there were a total of 2.418 million people in Simiyu as of last year, while Geita had 2.539 million people. Mwanza was home to almost four million people, whereas Mara had 2.49 million.

Analysts believe that one of the factors associated with high growth rates in the Lake Zone and Pemba is people’s desire to have a considerable number of children.

Reached for comment, Dr Majige Nkhilomellah a retired physician at the Tanzania Military Academy (TMA), said, “I happened to read an old report on fertility levels in Tanzania by the UN, which suggested that the ‘will of God’ is involved when one thinks of having children.

“I’m certain that the majority of people, especially women in the said regions, are influenced by religious beliefs, and this implies that a woman will have as many children as she is biologically capable of bearing.”

According to Dr Nkhilomellah, many people believe that children are gifts from God, and thus regard the use of contraceptives as a sin.

He thinks that women with higher levels of education tend to have greater autonomy in making decisions related to the number of children they want to have compared to less educated women.

When asked how the growth would affect the economy and the way forward, Dr Nkhilomellah said, “Rapid growth of the population usually creates more responsibilities for the government since more social services will be needed, otherwise people may face many economic and social problems.”

The government, he added, will need to invest more to achieve its social and economic development objectives in order to ensure that no one is left behind, noting, however, that scarcity of funds is another problem.

According to him, the government is working hard to ensure that people’s general wellbeing improves. With a larger population and less resources, poverty will be difficult to eradicate.

Also read:Did you miss census? Don’t worry ...

“This means that increased access to high quality reproductive healthcare services, including safe and effective family planning methods, will help to reduce fertility, slow down population growth and accelerate economic and social development,” Dr Nkhilomellah said.

Speaking during her recent tour of Geita Region, President Samia Suluhu Hassan expressed her concern about the rise in births, saying it could impede service delivery in the future.

“I was told yesterday that about 1,000 babies are delivered every month at the Buselesele Ward health centre in Geita Region. Now, how many classrooms will be needed after three years? What about health centres? How many will be needed to attend to all these children? How many tonnes of food will be needed? Let’s cut this rate (of having children), and put ourselves in control,” she said.

Dr Mariam Hassan, an independent development consultant, said, “The key factors behind population growth are usually declining mortality rates and rising birth rates.”

According to her, the trend indicates that in the said regions, birth rates are high, yet death rates are low.

“This means that the more the people, the more social services are needed, and since we are a transitional economy, there is a need to encourage couples to have smaller families,” she said.

For her part, Ms Kabula Mpenji, a resident of Busega Sistrict, Simiyu Region, said, “Having a large number of children is not only a blessing, it is also a source of much-needed manpower.”

She added that her father had three wives, who bore him 27 children.

They all grew up tilling the land, and never experienced hunger.

“We were involved solely in traditional agriculture, which needed adequate manpower,” Ms Mpenji said.

She added that she has five children, and said she is not sure whether or not she will bear more as that is up to her husband to decide.

She ruled out using contraceptives, saying she did not want her family to break up.

World Bank estimates for 2020 showed that Tanzania had a fertility rate of 4.8 births per woman, largely due to early marriages and low use of contraception.

With an average economic growth of about 6 percent during the past two decades or so, Tanzania has been able to surmount abject poverty for a good percentage of the population.

In 2000, 86 percent of Tanzanians were living in impoverished conditions, but this number dropped to 28 percent in 2018.

In a 2019 analysis titled Tanzania-Mainland Poverty Assessment, the World Bank noted that the country’s sustained economic growth helped to transform it into lower-middle income economy.