It's not as easy as giving them contraceptives. Culture and pragmatism both frequently encourage large families.

For example, farming families have major incentives to have large families so that the kids can help with the farming tasks. So you'll need a China-like child limit or some other way to incentivize them to actually use the contraception you provide.

I didn't say "just give them contraceptives."

That's why education is key as well. People who are well-educated have less children, on average. Look at the US, for example. So educate them, and enable them to become wealthy. Right now, they can't.

>People who are well-educated have less children

But that doesn't mean that a well educated farmer will have less children. He can be as educated as you like but unless he can increase productivity in some way (access to loans for equipment say, like through Fairtrade) then he still has as much work to do and still needs to provide the labour.

Suppose the education increase yields, unless we're on top of the trading practices then the value falls - everyone's yield has increased, if this means the market saturates he might make less money (perhaps none). If the market hasn't saturated he still needs more labour to gather the increased yield but gets the same income to share amongst the labourers - increasing the pressure to provide cheap labour by expanding his family.

In short the problem is more complex and IMO is not due to lack of education. What you're saying is that a poor agricultural labourer should sacrifice there own ability to earn more in order to stave off over-population - why is it down to them.

I'll go with the converse though. If you ensure that workers get a fair wage (Fairtrade again), one that can pay basic healthcare and education costs and ensure they have healthy food intake and a reasonable dwelling, then there is less pressure to reproduce (but possibly more opportunity to choose to? again it's complex).

Africa is not a barren land, much of Africa is perfect for farming. Much of Africa is not "perfect" for farming, but well good enough. However, if you have external nations bringing you food for free, why the hell would you go through the trouble to grow a crop, it's seriously hard work!

And, if you're in the part of Africa where growing crops is not feasible....move?

You realize that this isn't about renting a U-haul, right? It's about traveling, on foot or by public transportation, to somewhere where you don't own any land, don't speak the language, and don't know anyone. In other words, to become a refugee. There are plenty of people like that already, but they tend to move to the cities.

To add, there are unstable places in parts of Africa with civil wars that displace people into refugee camps where they can't do much farming.

I'm not offended by "them food aid."