DEMogRaPhic DEvEloPMENTS iN ThE MENa REgioN 219
7.3.2 Limits of growth
In this scenario, the EU-27 would experience a slight rise in population and
then a decrease. To date, the population of the MENA region has more than
quadrupled since 1950 and will continue to rise by a third of its present size
by 2030. Thus, whereas the region currently has slightly fewer inhabitants
than the EU, by 2030 it will have increased to 15 per cent more than the
EU-27.
Of the countries we chose to study more closely, Morocco and Turkey may
expect a lower-than-average increase in population than the other MENA
countries; Egypt will have about an average increase.
Seen internationally, the MENA region would appear to expect a moder-
ate rate of population increase over the next twenty years, remaining below
the values found in countries of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yet it will remain higher than in nineteenth-century Europe. The socio-
economic ramif ications of population growth of this magnitude are not
the same everywhere or at all times, but rather depend on complementary
conditions such as available capital and natural resources.
The Middle East and North Africa are among the regions of the world
with the least renewable freshwater supplies. According to the World Bank
(2012), of the eight countries with the smallest internal freshwater supply
per capita in the year 2011, seven were MENA states (Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE,
Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen). In Germany, for the same time
period, a total of 1,306 m³ water per capita were available – in contrast to
Jordan with 115 m³, Israel with 100 m³ and Syria with 356 m³. Other countries
in the region are better off – e.g., Morocco with 917 m³ or Turkey with 3160
m³ water per capita. The availability of freshwater is also a much more
complex matter than can be expressed in such statistics. On the one hand,
there are cross-border rivers that can be tapped, such as the Nile River for
Egypt. On the other hand, unequal supply throughout the year can be a
very limiting factor for economic and demographic growth.
Yet some experts already foresee problems in the water resources of the
MENA countries in the near future (see Ethelston 1999: 11; Nuscheler in this
volume). Ethelston estimates that, in 1950, 14 million persons in this region
were confronted with an acute water shortage; in the year 2025, this problem
will affect more than 400 million people. At that point, the regional need
for freshwater will surpass the resources by four times. Plans for Kenya
and Tanzania, in particular, to tap into the Blue and the White Nile for
irrigation projects in their own countries and to supply their own citizens
with drinking water will certainly have a great effect on Egypt. A similar