Abstract
The population of the least developed countries of the Sahel will more than triple from 100 million to 340 million by 2050, and new research projects that today’s extreme temperatures will become the norm by mid-century. The region is characterized by poverty, illiteracy, weak infrastructure, failed states, widespread conflict, and an abysmal status of women. Scenarios beyond 2050 demonstrate that, without urgent and significant action today, the Sahel could become the first part of planet earth that suffers large-scale starvation and escalating conflict as a growing human population outruns diminishing natural resources. National governments and the international community can do a great deal to ameliorate this unfolding disaster if they put in place immediate policies and investments to help communities adapt to climate change, make family planning realistically available, and improve the status of girls and women. Implementing evidence-based action now will be an order of magnitude more humane and cost-effective than confronting disaster later. However, action will challenge some long held development paradigms of economists, demographers, and humanitarian organizations. If the crisis unfolding in the Sahel can help bridge the current intellectual chasm between the economic commitment to seemingly endless growth and the threat seen by some biologists and ecologists that human activity is bringing about irreversible damage to the biosphere, then it may be possible also to begin to solve this same formidable problem at a global level.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bongaarts J, Bulatao RA (2000) Beyond six billion. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC
Campbell M (2007) Why the silence on population? Popul Environ 28(4):237–246
Campbell M, Sahin-Hodoglugil NN, Potts M (2006) Barriers to fertility regulation: a review of the literature. Stud Fam Plan 37(2):87–98
Campbell MN, Prata N, Potts M (2013) Impact of freedom on fertility decline. J Fam Plan Reprod Health Care 39(1):44–50
European Monitoring Center for Organised Crime (2013) http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/01/12/study-sahel-greater-threat-to-europe-than-afghanistan.html. Cited 3/23/13
Davis K (1967) Population policies: will current programs succeed? Grounds for skepticism concerning the demographic effectiveness of family planning programs. Science 158(802):730
Diamond-Smith N, Potts M (2011) A woman cannot die from a pregnancy she does not have. Int Perspect Sex Reprod Health 37(3):155–157
Dyson T (2010) Population and development: the demographic transition. Zed Books, London
Ehrlich PR, Ehrlich AH (2013) Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proc R Soc 280(1754):1–9
Engels F (1844) Outlines of a critique of political economy. Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher
Ezeh AC, Mberu BU, Emina JO (2009) Stall in fertility decline in Eastern African countries: regional analysis of patterns, determinants and implications. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 364(1532):2991–3007
IPCC (2007) In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Guengant J (2012) Population, development et dividend demographique au Tchad. Paris: l’Agence Française de Développement (AFD). Available at: http://www.afd.fr/webdav/site/afd/shared/PORTAILS/PAYS/TCHAD/PDF/Etude%20dividende%20d%C3%A9mographique%20finale.pdf. Cited 23 March 2013
International Planned Parenthood Federation (2012) Annual performance report: 2011–2012. IPPF, London
Lam D (2011) How the world survived the population bomb: lessons from 50 years of extraordinary demographic history. Demography 48:1231–1262
Lutz W, Sanderson W, Scherbov S (2001) The end of world population growth. Nature 412:543–545
Malthus T (1798) An essay on the principle of population. Penguin books, London
May J (2012) World population policies: their origin, evolution and impact. Springer, New York
Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers J, Behrens WW (1972) Limits of growth. Potomac Associates, Washington
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: biodiversity synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC
Neff R, Parker C, Kirschenmann FL, Tinch J, Lawrence RS (2011) Peak oil, food systems and public health. Am J Public Health 101(9):1587–1597
Oumar J (2013) Ansar al-Din threat stokes Sahel fears. Magharebia. Available at: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2013/01/07/feature-02. Cited 3 February 2013
OXFAM (2012) Food Crisis in the Sahel: Five steps to break the hunger cycle in 2012. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/ib-food-crisis-sahel-31052012-en.pdf. Cited 22 March 2013
Pearce F (2010) The coming population crash and our planet’s surprising future. Bacon Press, Boston
Phillips JF, Jackson EE, Bawah AA, MacLeod B, Adongo P, Baynes C, Williams J (2012) The long-term impact of the Navrongo project in Northern Ghana. Stud Fam Plan 43(3):175–190
Potts M (2009) Where next? Philos Trans R Soc 364:3115–3124
Potts M, Gidi V, Campbell M, Zureick S (2011) Niger: too little, too late. Int Perspect Sex Reprod Health 37:95–101
Potts M, Zulu E, Wehner M, Castillo F, Henderson C (2013) OASIS: organizing to advance solutions in the Sahel. Bixby Center for Population, Health & Sustainability, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Prata N, Gessessew A, Cartwright A, Fraser A (2011) Provision of injectable contraceptives in Ethiopia through community-based reproductive health agents. Bull World Health Organ 89(8):556–564
Running SW (2012) A measurable planetary boundary for the biosphere. Science 337(6101):1458–1459
Rutstein SO (2005) Effects of preceding birth intervals on neonatal, infant and under-five mortality and nutritional status in developing countries: evidence from the demographic and health surveys. Int J Gynecol Obstet 89:S7–S24
Sachs J (2005) The end of poverty: economic possibilities for our time. The Penguin Group, New York
Schlenker W, Roberts M (2009) Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(37):15594–15598
Spiedel JJ, Weiss DC, Ethelston SA, Gilbert SM (2009) Population policies, programs and the environment. Philos Trans R Soc 364(1532):3049–3065
Stein H (1999) What I think: essays on economics, politics, and life. American Enterprise Institute, New York
Szreter S (1993) The idea of the demographic transition and the study of fertility change: a critical intellectual history. Popul Dev Rev 19:659–701
The Royal Society (2012) People and the planet: Policy Centre report 01/12
The World Bank. Regional Vice-Presidency for Africa (2013) The pirates of Somalia: ending the threat, rebuilding a nation. World Bank, Washington, DC
Turner A (2009) Population priorities: the challenge of rapid population growth. Philos Trans R Soc 364:2977–2984
United Nations (2012) Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision. Available at: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/inex.htm. Cited 23 March 2013
US federal government FY14 budget, actual outlays in \({\$}\)billion. Available at: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_actual. Last accessed 27 May 2013
Ward MN (1998) Diagnosis and short lead-time prediction of summer rainfall in tropical North Africa at interannual and multidecadal timescales. J Clim 11(12):3167–3191
World Bank. Independent Evaluation Group (2009) Improving effectiveness and outcomes for the poor in health, nutrition and population: an evaluation of World Bank group support since 1997 World Bank Publications
World Bank (2012) Doing business in a more transparent world. World Bank, Washington, DC
World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Vision 2050. Available at: http://www.wbcsd.org/vision2050.aspx. Cited 22 March 2013
Zulu E (2012) How to defuse sub-Saharan Africa’s population bomb. New Scientist. Printed 26 April 2012
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Rachel Weinrib for preparing Fig. 1 and Rebecca Braun for useful comments on the text.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Potts, M., Henderson, C. & Campbell, M. The Sahel: A Malthusian Challenge?. Environ Resource Econ 55, 501–512 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-013-9679-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-013-9679-2