Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah, NPC Executive Director
Effective population management improves the lives and livelihoods of citizens by making it easier and cheaper to implement all other policies such as education, housing, sanitation, employment and security.
It also helps to balance the population growth rate of the country in line with available resources of the country at any time, focusing on quality life for all. It includes family planning, child marriage, teen pregnancy, gender equality and equity.
Indeed, data shows that the neglect of effective population management accounts for about 30 per cent of population growth in developing countries due to unintended and accidental pregnancies with numerous negative health and socio-economic
The 1969 population policy entitled “Population Planning for National Progress and Prosperity”, the revised 1994 Population Policy, the revised 2018 Population Policy and Act 37 Clause 4 of the 1992 Constitution, all identifying the population of Ghana as the most valuable resource, direct that the State shall implement a population policy consistent with the aspirations of the nation.
The goal of population policy is to ensure a healthy, educated, skilled population for national development. Since the population acts as both the instrument and the objective of national development, its health, protection and enhancement are the government’s foremost responsibility.
Therefore, when that welfare is threatened, the government must act and be guided by evidence-based policies with citizen participation to ensure that the population finds balance based on health and human right rather than on illness and premature death.
Research findings
Informed by research findings that identify too early, too close, too many and too late pregnancies as avoidably risky pregnancies, or demographic risk, population policies and programmes should be implemented to minimise such births.
In addition to improving the health outcomes of women, children and ultimately the nation, this will reduce the population growth rate.
According to the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey report produced by Ghana Statistical Service, infants born to mothers under 18 years and over 35 years, of short birth intervals (less than 24 months) and births of higher order (4 or above) have a higher risk of mortality.
The first births also have a higher unavoidable mortality and morbidity risks.
In the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health report, 30% of births were not at any high risk and 21% were in the unavoidable risk category. A little under half of births (49%) were in at least one avoidable high-risk category, 31% were in a single high-risk category, 17% were in multiple high-risk categories.
It is important for all stakeholders, governments and parliamentarians to realise that high risk births, unwanted childbearing and rapid population growth as a demographic path are major obstacles to our development.
Unintended pregnancies
According to statistics, these unintended and high-risk pregnancies tend to end in abortions, unintended births, low birth weights or miscarriages, with detrimental health and economic consequences for many women, their families, tax payers and government.
High fertility rate, combined with declining mortality, results in rapid population growth. This type of situation continues to create a range of social, economic and environmental challenges which make it more difficult for living standards to rise.
It also brings to light, the strong link between rapid population growth, high fertility, ill-timed pregnancies and poverty – a demographic-related poverty-trap that affect development prospects.
Though investing in socio-economic development will eventually reduce fertility and improve quality of life, the process, according to experts, is likely to take decades during which the rapid population growth would continue to overwhelm both household and government budgets.
Family planning programmes have proven to bring about health and socio-economic benefits through smaller, healthier, more educated and skilled families.
Family planning
We, therefore, need to invest in family planning for the following reasons:
1.To reduce high risk pregnancies which translate into reduction in medical, economic and social expenses. Reducing high risk pregnancies sets the stage for adequate investment in nutrition, health, education and skill needed for human capital accumulation.
2.Investing in family planning reduces the high youth dependency ratio and increases investment per child and ultimately, improves the economic prospects of households and the nation.
3.Fertility decline through reduction in high-risk avoidable pregnancies improves not only the health of mothers and children but also provides economic, environmental and psychological benefits that improve the lives of women, children, their communities and the quality of life of the next generation.
It is, therefore, important that we make family planning services more widely available and accessible in Ghana. We can achieve this through a well-funded, well-coordinated (public, private health facilities and pharmaceutical industry) and active countrywide media campaign supported by political, traditional and religious leaderships that provide information about the benefits of family planning.
People should be educated on the need to have smaller healthier families and the advantages of reducing risky pregnancies to the family, community and nation.
Consequence
Consequently, investing in family planning (advocacy, service provision, and enabling environment) alongside education, health employment and good governance will enable Ghana to harness the demographic dividend. It will also allow for a lifetime of returns and an economic imperative for sustainable development.
In conclusion, I would like to say that though reproduction is an individual decision, it has communal and national consequences, hence in as much as we decide, we need to do so with others in mind. The exercise of our right to have the number of children we want should not harm us and most certainly, should not include putting the lives of children and other citizens at risk.
Population and development are inter-related, so in order to improve the quality of development planning, it is imperative to promote awareness among planners and policy makers on the need to adopt population policies consistent with development objectives.
To this end, it is crucial that social and economic plans reflect the goal of improved and sustained quality of life for the people of Ghana.
The writer is the Executive Director of the National Population Council (NPC).
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