Government plans to control family size in Kenya

The government wants to halve the average number of children that Kenyan women can give birth to. The new policy is meant to put a stop to the fast ballooning Kenyan population within the next decade. If all goes according to plan, Kenyan women will, on average, give birth to 2.6 children over their reproductive age of between 15 to 49 years. Currently, the women give birth to an average of 4.6 children. This is one of the proposals contained in the new Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2012 on Population for National Development passed in Parliament this week. The move is part of plans to control the growth of Kenya’s population, which is expected to nearly double by 2030. According to the document, the population is expected to reach 77 million by 2030 when Kenya’s economic blue-print, Vision 2030, expires. The country’s population stood at 38.6 million in 2009 when the last National Housing and Population Census was carried out. It is estimated that the country’s population grows by 2.9 per cent — or one million people — annually, a figure the ambitious policy seeks to reduce by nearly half. – Daily Nation