Challenges and opportunities: The population of the Middle East and North Africa.

The countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) continue to fascinate and concern the rest of the world. With two-thirds of the worlds known petroleum reserves the regions economic and political importance far outweighs its population size. It has the worlds second-fastest growing population after sub-Saharan Africa. Its demographic trends-especially the rapidly growing youth population-are complicating the regions capacity to adapt to social change economic strains and sometimes wrenching political transformations. The people of the Middle East and North Africa have long played an integral if sometimes volatile role in the history of human civilization. Three of the worlds major religions originated in the region-Judaism Christianity and Islam. MENA contains some of the worlds oldest cities; universities existed here long before they emerged in Europe. Today the population is overwhelmingly Islamic yet includes substantial Jewish and Christian minorities. And while Arabic is the predominant language two of the regions largest countries-Iran and Turkey-and Israel are not Arabic-speaking. Thanks to rapidly declining death rates and slowly declining fertility rates MENAs population size quadrupled in the last half of the 20th century. It stands at about 430 million in 2007. Despite recent fertility declines MENAs population is projected to surpass 700 million by 2050. (excerpt)