BY DON CAYO, VANCOUVER SUN
If Africa keeps growing at its current rate for the rest of this century, it will be home to 15 billion people -well over twice the population of the whole world today.
And even if the African birthrate, the highest on Earth, suddenly falls to the level that balances births with deaths, its current population is so disproportionately young that the total number will still nearly double to 1.8 billion.
Of course, it isn't a matter of eitheror, and both these scenarios are unlikely.
Even a resource-rich continent like Africa can't indefinitely support its high level of growth, particularly in the middle regions where the fertility rate is the highest on the continent and where most countries have trouble feeding the people who live there.
The odds are just as long that Africa will miraculously transform into a low-growth part of the world. Although experience elsewhere, especially in Asia, shows birthrates can fall dramatically and fast, 180-degree changes don't happen overnight.
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