"Secrets of the Sahara" is a Dutch documentary series about various nations in or around the Sahara. In this episode, "Niger´s Rapid Growing Population" (the title used on YouTube), the team visits Agadez and some other places in the West African nation of Niger (not to be confused with its southern neighbor Nigeria). Niger is one of the poorest nations in Africa, perhaps the world, yet its population is projected to double within the next 15 years. Currently, it has 23 million inhabitants, so presumbly they will be 46 million by 2035! The average amount of children per woman is seven, and half of the population is under fifteen years of age.
The team visits a village where the traditional Muslim leaders are actively encouraging an even higher birth rate, with the simple argument that it´s "the will of Allah", and that´s that. The marabout claims to have 13 children himself. Something doesn´t ad up, since the traditionalists also prohibit modern medicine. So how can the birth rate be so high? The village marabout actually says he fathered a total of 26 children, but that half of them died! Are the women in these villages doing *anything* else than breeding, I wonder? The villagers even proudly display a 12-year old child bride! Or maybe polygamy is the answer, since the reporter then visits a very extended family...
Most of the documentary is about Agadez, a town that became notorious during the migrant crisis as a major transit point for West African migrants from nations outside Niger trying to reach North Africa and then Europe. In fact, it seems the town experienced something of an economic boom during the migrant crisis, a boom which ended the moment migration north became more difficult.
The reporter is explicitly on the side of the traffickers (he actually calls them "smugglers"!) and bemoans the fact that the EU somehow got Algeria and Libya to send many of the migrants back to Agadez. It seems EU even paid millions of euros to the Nigerien government, money ear-marked for the smugglers (!), in order to stop the migrant streams. Or so the smugglers claim. They also claim that corrupted local officials in Agadez confiscated most of the money for themselves, rather than giving it to the traffickers. The top bureaucrat in the town, in his turn, complains about high administration costs and what not. Apparently, *he* had to pay somebody to get the applications for EU money processed at all!
The documentary ends with somebody almost bragglingly informing the film crew that the smuggling of migrants in the direction of Libya is still on-going. Indeed it is, and quite openly, in broad day-light and in front of the cameras...
Personally, I can´t say I mind sending money to Niger, per se. I mean, just print the damn money and ship them off, it´s not like they will cause inflation in our back yard anyway. Or so I´ve been kindly informed by the Federal Reserve and US Congress, LOL.
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