After a long period of relative stagnation, Tanzania has been experiencing economic growth of around 6% to 7% for each year in the past decade. However, the country has also been experiencing a population explosion, creating significant infrastructure challenges as the country continues to work its way out of poverty. Tanzania’s population has tripled in the past 35 years to reach its current size of 45 million, according to the results of the August 2012 census.
At the time of the last census in 2002, the country had a population of 34.4 million. Based on current net growth rates of 2.6% per year, the population is expected to reach 51 million in 2016. However, most of the country’s infrastructure was designed and built for a vastly smaller population, many of the country’s resources are stretched to their limits, and the capacity of the government to provide services to so many people is constrained.
In the coming years there will be significant challenges in meeting the needs of the people as the population expands well past 50 million. Careful planning, both at the governmental level and at the individual level, will be required, including family planning. Nonetheless Tanzania is already doing better than its neighbours at containing population growth, with an population growth rate of 2.6% compared to Uganda’s 3.2%, Rwanda’s 2.96% and Kenya’s 2.7%.