Ghana makes strides in implementing population issues

Ghana has made significant progress implementing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action (PoA) relating to gender equality, health and the demographic transition over the past 20 years.   The National Population Council Executive Director,  Prof. Stephen Kwankyi, who presented Ghana’s statement at the ongoing 47th session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development at the UN Headquarters in New York, said the country’s recognition of the centrality of population issues in national development gave it a head start in implementing many of the priority actions of the ICPD-PoA.  

This year’s session is dedicated to assessing the implementation of the ICPD since 1994 and the follow-up actions beyond 2014.  

Prof. Kwankyi indicated that the  country’s current development policy framework sought to improve human capital and create sustainable jobs which were essential to accelerating economic growth and achieving national development goals.

Ghana, he stated, recognised the importance of women as both agents and beneficiaries of social development and change. 

“Accelerated improvements in institutional mechanisms, as well as policy and legislative frameworks relevant to women’s empowerment and promoting gender equity, have led to increased awareness among the general population about the importance of upholding the rights of women and children,” he said. 

He said the country also adopted a National Gender and Children’s Policy in 2004 to mainstream gender concerns in the national development agenda and criminalised certain harmful cultural practices, including female genital mutilation (FGM), primarily, to protect the rights of women and adolescent girls. 

Health 

In addition, the Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) initiative has also brought primary health care and other reproductive health services closer to the people, with improvements being recorded in the incidence of malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS.

Prof. Kwankyi told the conference delegates that the country had made increased family planning uptake, skilled delivery, neonatal and postnatal care, while discouraging early marriage by legislation and counseling to improve maternal and child health. 

“By law, family planning is now a benefit package under the National Health Insurance Scheme, a major social protection intervention Ghana has implemented since 2003, in addition to a free maternal and child health policy later implemented since 2007,” said Prof. Kwankyi. 

“We are happy to note that fertility has steadily declined from 5.5 in 1993 to 4.3 in 2011 and maternal mortality, though still unacceptably high, has also seen some appreciable reduction from 451 per 100,000 live births in 2007 to 350 in 2010.  Infant and under-five mortality, has also reduced to 53 and 82 per 1,000 live births, respectively and will require more effort to bring them further down,’ he added.

“A major concern to us is the  disconnect between the steady fertility decline so far recorded and modern contraceptive use among women in spite of its increase from 17 per cent in 2008 to 23 per cent in 2011. 

“Notwithstanding the significant improvements in the health of Ghanaians, rural areas are at a disadvantage for their limited attraction to professionally trained health workers, a situation which continues to impact on the quality of service delivery in the remote rural communities,” he said.

He noted that financing the ICPD agenda had been a major challenge in Ghana.

“In the face of serious domestic resource constraints and the dwindling external funding support, it has become increasingly imperative for countries in the south to look within themselves to mobilise resources to prosecute the ICPD and other development agenda. This calls for the urgent need for strengthened south-south collaboration for the effective implementation of programmes,” Prof. Kwankyi said.

According to him, Ghana fully supported initiatives which offered lessons and best practices as vehicles to successfully executing any unfinished agenda under the ICPD. 

There is also the need to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure effective implementation and accountability at all levels.  

 

He reiterated Ghana’s commitment and support for the implementation of the ICPD-PoA, MDGs and post-2015 development agenda, as well as the various regional and global instruments and frameworks agreed by African heads of state and government and member states on population and development.