COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2017
9
According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the total population of the OIC was
about 1.73 billion in 2015. This constituted almost a quarter of the world population. Although
its share in total population has been decreasing from year to year, more than half of the OIC
member countries’ population is still living in rural areas. Furthermore, over 60 percent of the
people living in rural areas are engaged in agricultural activities.
Agriculture sector should provide enough food for the growing population in the world and
especially in the OIC. In the last decade, the agricultural GDP expanded globally by an average
of 2.57 percent a year, more than the population growth of 1.24 percent. In the same period,
OIC Member Countries have experienced yearly 3.51 percent growth in agricultural GDP, and
1.98 percent of growth in population. Therefore, both in the OIC and world, the growth rate in
agriculture sector is higher than the growth rate in population which enables to feed much
more people.
Table 4. Population Growth Rate in the OIC and in the World
Period African Group Arab Group Asian Group OIC World
1995-2005 2.71 2.20 1.70 2.03 1.28
2005-2015 2.82 1.98 1.51 1.93 1.20
1995-2015 2.77 2.09 1.61 1.98 1.24
Source: Annex 7
Table 4 presents the sub-regional average yearly overall and agricultural growths in 10 year
periods within the last two decades in OIC member countries. Compared to the world, all three
OIC sub-regions have experienced higher rates of population growth in the last two decades.
Among the regions, African Group’s average yearly population growth was the highest in the
periods of 1995-2005 and 2005-2015, with 2.71 percent and 2.82 percent, respectively.
Furthermore, African Group was the only group whose average yearly population growth has
risen (more than two times higher than the world’s population growth= during the last decade.
The lowest population growth was observed in the Asian Group with 1.70 percent in 1995-
2005, and 1.51 percent in 2005-2015 periods.
While the rural population of the OIC member countries was 622 million people in 1990 with
63.5 percent share in total population, it increased to almost 879 million people, constituted
50.9 percent of the total OIC population in recent years. The main reason of decreasing the
rural population share was that the increase in rural population was lower than the increase in
total population throughout the years. This reflects that worldwide trend of urbanization is
also observable for the OIC member countries, in general.
In general terms, the share of rural population in total population is decreasing in the OIC as
well as in all sub-regions. Within the sub-regions, the share remained higher in the African
Group with 58.9 percent and the lowest level was Arab Group with 43.7 percent in 2015.