National Population Council launches advocacy tools

The National Population Council (NPC) has launched two tools that demonstrate the link between population growth and socio-economic development.

The tools, titled: “Ghana on the rise” and “Ghana RAPID”, were developed to advocate the strong linkage between population and development and provide policy makers a clear understanding of why population dynamics should be mainstreamed into sector and district development plans.

The project was supported by two US-based development organisations, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and Futures Group and funded by the United States of America.

Speaking at the launch in Accra, the acting Executive Director of the NPC, Ms Marian Kpakpah, said both tools would enable decision makers to engage in high-level policy dialogue and encourage broad-based participation in the Family Planning and Reproductive Health (FP/RH) and population development policy process.

“It is our expectation that these tools will be used by as many stakeholders as possible to advocate increased attention to population factors,” she said.

She noted that the population of some countries had served as the main drivers of development.

That, she said, was because population influenced all aspects of socioeconomic development.

Ms Kpakpah stated that the government had, over the years, put in place many development planning policies and frameworks aimed at maintaining a population of high quality that was required for accelerated national socioeconomic development,” she added.

According to her, the tools showed evidence that the welfare of the country was threatened by subtle and demographic processes because a change in any population component gradually affected growth and development.

Collective effort

The Pro-Vice Chancellor, Research Innovation and Development of the University of Ghana, Professor John Gyapong, said the launch of the tools was in response to the mandate of the NPC to create an enabling policy environment for fertility management and family planning mechanisms to reduce rapid growth in Ghana.

“These tools will provide data and information that will be of interest to policy makers in investing and repositioning the concept of family planning and in providing the necessary support systems to achieve desired results for national growth,” he said.

He added that to make the tools work effectively there was the need for a collective responsibility to meet the existing and growing need for quality family planning and reproductive health services and to expand educational and other opportunities for women.

Ghana on the rise

“Ghana on the rise” is a presentation which highlights the nexus between population and national development. It traces population growth in the country from 1960 to date in relation to improvement in health, the economy and employment.

It also discusses changes in population structure, with the aim of improving the understanding of the demographic dividend; that is, a limited period within which the dependent population slowly decreases as the working age population increases as a result of falling birth rates, leading to increased personal savings and investments.

Ghana RAPID

The Ghana Resources for Awareness on Population and Development (RAPID) combines socio-economic indicators such as labour force participation, primary school enrolment and number of nurses per capita, with demographic information and population projections, to estimate requirements of selected sectors.

The result is the quantification of the human resource and other indicators such as teachers, schools, jobs and healthcare workers who will be required in the future, based on the underlying population projections