Egypt census workers detect another baby boom

Cairo: Census workers going door to door in Egypt's teeming neighborhoods and crowded towns are discovering a new country of more than 20 million people born in the last decade alone.

Family planning efforts have lapsed over the past decade, particularly during the chaotic years following the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. On Thursday the government is mainly focused on combatting Islamic militancy and repairing the tattered economy.

But the staggering growth rate in the most populous Arab country, already home to more than 93 million people, could worsen both problems by giving rise to yet another bulging generation with few job prospects and widespread reliance on dwindling government assistance.

"In 10 years, we've made what can be considered an entirely new country," said Hussein Sayed, the coordinator of the national census. The results will be finalized and released in August.

Census workers have been traveling the country for months, documenting not only population growth but also household wealth, data that might help the government to better target its costly subsidies for bread, fuel and other basic.

They have found that Egypt's population is growing by around 2 million a year, which would strain resources even if the country were able to stand on its own feet. As it is, Egypt has received billions of dollars in aid from Gulf nations in recent years. When that began to dry up last year, Cairo secured a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to support a package of reforms.

The fear is that if runaway population growth continues, the aid will be spread too thin. The economic reforms, including a float of the local currency and the slashing of fuel subsidies, have caused the price of many local goods to soar in recent months. 

The further erosion of subsidies could heighten the risk of social unrest.

The challenge was laid bare in a recent visit by census workers to Giza, a packed Cairo district that sprawls from the west bank of the Nile to the Pyramids.

There they went alley by alley through one of Cairo's many informal neighborhoods, unplanned communities where most of the city's some 20 million residents live, and where distrust of authorities runs deep.

"We say to every family, workshop, business, or factory owner, please cooperate with us by giving correct information, so we can make decisions that are in their best interest," said Yasser Hussein, the coordinator for the census in Giza.