From Africa Check

Does Zambia have the fastest growing population in the world? This is the claim made recently by the country’s vice-president, Guy Scott.

According to The Post newspaper, Scott “suggested that Zambians should be encouraged to slow down on child-bearing so that the country drops from being the fastest-growing population in the world to at least the third or fourth position”.

The article went further, citing another unnamed source stating that “Zambia has the highest rate of growth of population of any country in the world”. The claim was repeated in a subsequent report published by The Post.

Speaking to Africa Check, Scott said he had been quoted accurately by The Post about the claim that Zambia has the fastest-growing population in the world. He said the claim originated from a best-selling book called Ten Billion which was written by Stephen Emmott, a scientist and head of computational research at Microsoft. Citing United Nations (UN) projections, the book states that by the year 2100 Zambia’s population will have increased by 941%.

The origins of the claim

In 2011, the UN Population Division projected that Zambia’s population, which according to the 2010 Census, then stood at 13,092,666, would reach 140,348,000 by 2100.

The UN’s projection was based on statistical models developed by Adrian Raftery and colleagues at the University of Washington Centre for Statistics and the Social Sciences. Raftery told Africa Check “Zambia is one of the countries that will have the fastest population growth over the rest of the century”.

“There is uncertainty about the 2100 projection, but there is no doubt at all that Zambia’s population will increase greatly by the end of the century,” Raftery said.

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