Managing population growth improves quality of life
Population growth has impact on national development, hence the argument that population growth must be regulated to correspond with economic development.
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Currently, the country’s annual population growth rate is estimated at 2.5 per cent, which means it increases between 700,000 and 800,000 annually and more than the global rate of 1.5 per cent.
According to experts, the country was saddled with inadequate financial resources to give its barely 29 million people the quality of life they deserved.
Thus although successive governments had shown the commitment to give Ghanaians the best, their efforts hardly made impact due to the population size.
The experts have indicated that the main factors that impact on population growth are migration, mortality and family planning, however, the one that a country could have much control over and use effectively to manage a population was family planning.
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Family planning
Promotion of family planning is essential to securing the well-being and autonomy of women, while supporting the health and development of communities.
It involves the use of contraceptive methods to anyone who is sexually active, including adolescents, and the treatment of infertility.
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This implies that family planning services should be widely available and easily accessible through midwives and other trained health workers.
Governments, therefore, have the responsibility to provide midwives who are trained to provide locally available and culturally acceptable contraceptive methods. Other trained health workers, for example, community health workers, are also needed to provide counselling and some family planning methods, such as pills and condoms.
Slowing population growth
Family planning is key to slowing unsustainable population growth and the resulting negative impacts on the economy, environment, and national and regional development efforts.
Family planning enables people to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health. It represents an opportunity for women to pursue additional education and participate in public life, including paid employment in non-family organisations. Additionally, having smaller families allow parents to invest more in each child. Children with fewer siblings tend to stay in school longer than those with many siblings.
A woman’s ability to choose if and when to become pregnant also has a direct impact on her health and well-being. It prevents unintended pregnancies, including those of older women who face increased risks related to pregnancy. Evidence suggests that women who have more than four children are at increased risk of maternal mortality.
Population management
The Executive Director of the National Population Council (NPC), Dr Leticia Adelaide Appiah, has been reported to have said that the council was advocating the strict implementation of the existing National Population Policy to help control the current abnormal population and fertility growth rate to enhance national development and ensure quality living. The National Population Policy places a cap on the number of children a couple could have, which is a birth rate of 3.1 by 2020.
However the Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Mr Niyi Ojuolape, expresses a slightly differently opinion.
Sharing his view and the role of the UNFPA in population management he said although population management was crucial, the essence of it should be giving all people the same standard and quality of living without trampling on anyone’s right rather than seeking to control birth rate.
“Whatever you have as a country in terms of population size, you should be able to give them the best, basic things that every human being needs to have a decent life, that is what we think should be the priority of every government and not how many children a person should have,” he said.
He noted that people were having unwanted pregnancies largely due to unmet needs of contraception due to lack of access and education.
Empowerment of citizenry
Mr Ojuolape said the UNFPA, therefore, advocated the empowerment of the citizenry, an increase in the discussion on the logic of family planning and making accessible family planning services so that people could make informed choices.
“It is a fact that people are having sex, whether married or not but that should not necessarily result in childbirth that parents, teenagers, family and the nation are psychologically or financially not ready for,” he said.
He explained that because family planning remained the prerogative of the citizenry, the state could only empower them with information to make informed choices that would not affect them or their countries.
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“Although some countries do it by force the UNFPA do not believe in or support the use of force, every human being have the right to do what they deem beneficial, but we help you to do what you want to do in a beneficial manner by empowering you with information to make the best of decisions,” he said.
“That is why the UNFPA is committed to empowering people with all these information as well as being the highest provider of family planning commodities in Ghana through the public health system to be given free of charge to people who express interest,” he said.