The total fertility rate (TFR) for the country as a whole was 4.1 in 1990, with a rate of 4.8 for the 55 per cent of the population which is rural and 3.7 for the urban population. It is likely that fertility increased in the mid-1990s with the number of annual births rising to a peak in 1994. Since then the birth rate has fallen substantially for both urban and rural populations. The growth rate has fallen from 2.7 per cent in 1990 to 1.5 per cent in 1997.