‘There’s need for improved family planning’
Although Ghana has made progress in reducing the fertility rate among married women, the stall in fertility levels over the past 20 years demands an increase in national efforts to improve family planning and awareness of population-related issues.
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The National Population Council (NPC) has projected a national population of 50 million by 2038 if the country does not improve its family planning and attain a high contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR).
According to the NPC, the CPR is currently estimated at 21.6 per cent, adding that the country failed to achieve its expected CPR of 28 per cent in 2010.
Speaking at an advocacy seminar in Accra yesterday, a representative of the Futures Group at the NPC, Mr Kobena Hanson, remarked that increasing contraceptive prevalence would improve the health and well-being of women and children.
Besides, he said, it would contribute to a reduction in the high rate of maternal mortality.
CPR goals
The achievement of the CPR goals, he explained, was an integral part of the country’s national strategy for improved health and economic development.
“Although Ghana’s CPR is among the highest in the sub-region, it is very low compared with that of other developing countries,” he said.
Mr Hanson indicated that maternal mortality had recorded some decline but was not adequate to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target by 2015.
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However, he noted that family planning could improve maternal health outcomes, adding that the use of contraception could reduce the risk of closely spaced pregnancies that jeopardised women and children’s health.
Touching on some major causes of maternal mortality, he explained that unsafe abortions accounted for 11 per cent of all maternal deaths.
The advocacy seminar on population and development inter-linkages for the private sector was facilitated by Futures Group, a US-based development organisation, and supported by USAID.
It brought together players in the private sector to identify areas of collaboration in population and reproductive health and family planning programmes.
Main drivers
For her part, the acting Executive Director of the NPC, Ms Marian Kpakpah, said the workshop was, among other things, to create awareness among private sector agencies of the benefits of enhanced CPR and the need to support population policies and programme implementation.
She noted that the population of some countries had served as the main drivers of development, adding that rapid population growth affected various sectors of the economy and could hinder the rate of economic development.
That, she said, was because population influenced all aspects of socio-economic 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 required for accelerated national socio-economic development.
According to her, the welfare of the country was threatened by subtle and demographic processes because a change in any population component gradually affected growth and development.