El-Sisi made the remarks on Tuesday during the first Global Congress on Population, Health and Development (PHDC 2023), which Egypt is hosting in the New Administrative Capital from 5-8 September.

El-Sisi was responding to Egypt’s Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, who said in his speech that the state cannot impose a limit on how many children a family can have as it is a matter of freedom.

“The number of children [per family] is a freedom and the state cannot interfere in the individuals’ freedoms,” Abdel-Ghaffar said, adding that the state, however, has a responsibility to direct individuals to have a healthy and a happy family.

Abdel-Ghaffar said demographics is the key issue to address while speaking about population growth. He affirmed that some countries with massive populations managed to turn into economic powers after the success of their population planning programmes, including China and India.

Since 2000, Egypt’s population increased by 40 million to reach 105 million people, Abdel-Ghaffar said

In 2022, 2.193 million babies were born in Egypt, a slight increase of 0.4 percent from the 2.185 million born in 2021.

However, the minister highlighted the decrease in the country’s fertility rate from 2.85 percent in 2021 to 2.1 percent in 2023 with an increase in the use of family planning methods by around 13 percent to 75 percent this year.

Controlling population growth
 

In his speech, El-Sisi said that while having children is a freedom, “if this freedom is not regulated, it can cause a disaster to the country."

“Some people are unaware of the seriousness of the [population] challenge, and society and the Egyptian state are paying the price,” the president stated.

El-Sisi said that Egypt needs to keep annual population growth at 400,000 over the next 20 years in order to keep providing services that have been in place for seven decades.

He also said the state has paid around EGP 10 trillion to develop infrastructure over the past decade amid population challenges.

The president pointed to China as an example of a country that has succeeded in controlling population growth through its one-child policy between 1979 and 2015.

Overpopulation, 2011 revolution
 

El-Sisi said overpopulation was one of the major challenges that caused people to protest in 2011, as the state was not able to provide them with their basic needs.

“If the population was not that large during that period, people would not have felt the lack of good health [services], good education and good employment,” El-Sisi stressed.

He warned about the harm that would be felt if the events of 2011 were repeated. Such events would cost the state, which is already in dire need of foreign currency, to lose hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Change in Egypt will be achieved when citizens, government, and leadership working together with understanding and awareness,” El-Sisi said.

He added that such change “can never be made by starting another revolution.”

The president, however, highlighted the resilience of the Egyptian state in the face of consecutive crises, including COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The president highlighted the role of the state, media, religious leaders, intellectuals and civil society groups in facing overpopulation.

“You are all invited to counter this problem,” he stated.

The president also blamed population growth for causing citizens to be dissatisfied with their pay over decades.

“In the fifties, the citizen was paid a few pounds and he was happy and now he is paid thousands of pounds and he is unhappy,” he stated.

National population strategy
 

On Tuesday, Egypt launched its National Strategy for Population and Development 2023-2030.

The strategy aims to achieve a balance between population and development by enhancing reproductive health, empowering women, investing in youth, improving educational opportunities, raising awareness of population issues and achieving social and economic well-being for all citizens.

Egypt is hosting the PHDC 2023 under the theme: “Healthy Population for Sustainable Development” to discuss the population issue and its impact on sustainable development.

Minsters, politicians, representatives of civil society organizations, NGOs, the private sector, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers and influencers are participating in the conference.

The conference seeks to highlight the relation between population, health, and sustainable development, formulating a roadmap on adaptation to face global challenges.