According to the 2024 National Population and Housing Census, Uganda’s population stands at 45,905,417 people (nearly 46 million).
The census was conducted in May 2024.The population represents a growth of 11.3 million since the 2014 census, a period of 10 years which is a 2.9% population growth rate.
A high population has several merits as many scholars and economists have argued over time, including increased human resource, contributions to GDP to mention but a few. However, many scholars have argued against population explosion as very detrimental and costly in its management and planning.
Thomas Robert Malthus, one of the most famous demography scholars, has always argued against population explosion. Malthus suggests that population growth will inevitably outpace the growth of the food supply, leading to poverty, famine, and other crises.
According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Uganda has a total area of 241,555 square kilometers, open water bodies covered 37,013 square kilometers, Wetlands cover 8,773 square kilometers, and land area is 204,540 square kilometers. The population explosion raises acute concerns about its future management and the availability of land for human settlements and agriculture. Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?
According to UBOS, in 2019, Agricultural land increased from 106,656 sq. kms in the year 2017 to 107,728 sq. kms in 2019, Built up land area covered 2,595 square kilometers, Forest cover reduced significantly by 44.7 percent between 1990 and 2019, Woodlands cover declined to 17,399 sq km in the year 2019 from 28,347 sq km in 2000, Total forest cover declined by 6.4 percent between the years 2010 and 2019. Is Uganda heading to Malthus’ population trap?
This poses a serious threat to the environment and biodiversity raising worries about future climate catastrophes, human settlement and general human happiness in the country. Is something being done to manage Uganda’s population explosion?
Moving from region to region, there are land conflicts everywhere and all day throughout the news and social media. Land is always inherited and sub-divided into small pieces among family members, leaving their descendants with options of further sub-divisions of the small pieces inherited from their ancestors.
The government has kept adamant about the land use and settlement pattern which has made fragmentation inevitable which hinders mechanized and large scale agricultural activities. Does the government have any plans to manage settlements and land use patterns in the country?
In comparison, China has a population of 1.411 billion people (2023) with a total land area of 9.597 million Square Kilo-meters which is 39 times compared to the total land area of Uganda, with regulated settlements and land use patterns. Could Uganda copy the Chinese module?
African countries like Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania among others have a much larger land area compared to Uganda but with similar or even less population figures with Uganda. How does Uganda plan to manage its population?
Land wrangles and conflicts, murders, fraud, indecent and primitive land use patterns, environmental destruction for example wetlands, forests, rivers, game parks among others are the order of the day in the country. All these can be attributed to population explosion and unregulated land use patterns in the country.
Richard Byamukama is Lawyer and a Security Studies Expert
