Chad

Chad is a landlocked country in Africa—the fifth largest in the continent—and has a population of 9.9 million (2007). It has a birth rate of 45.73 per 1,000, and an infant mortality rate of 91.5 per 1,000 live births. The maternal mortality rate at 1.1 per 100 births is one of the highest in the world. Chad's fertility rate is 5.43 births per woman (2008), the 27th highest in the world, although this is down from 6.7 births per woman a decade earlier. These high fertility and infant mortality rates are partially due to the fact that 72 percent of the population marry before they turn 17 years of age, with many young mothers and fathers often trying to bring up families without a wider ...