Hassan Mohtashami
17 July 2008
opinion
Kampala — World Population Day is commemorated globally on July 11 each year. The focus this year was family planning. It highlights the basic human right for individuals and couples to decide the timing and the spacing of their children.
Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of women and men do not have access to contraceptives to be able to exercise this right to reproductive health. Although family planning has been mostly addressed and discussed from one dimension, it has three major aspects:
Health perspective
Family planning can save lives. It is a proven fact that voluntary family planning and access to contraceptives are essential for the prevention of maternal and newborn deaths.
Ensuring access to family planning alone could reduce one-third of maternal mortality and 20% of child mortality. Maternal mortality is defined as death of a mother due to the pregnancy-related causes.
Giving birth should be a time of great joy to a mother and her family. Sadly, it is sometimes a tragedy, as too many mothers die just because of pregnancy complications.
Human rights and gender equality perspective
Being able to determine the number, timing and spacing of one's children is a recognized human right. But this right is not yet fully realised across the world, especially among the poor. According to the results of Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, which was recently published by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, unmet need for family planning services is 41%.
In other words, this figure basically indicates that 41% of married women in Uganda are in need of family planning information and services, which is not available or accessible to them.
Family planning is also essential to women's empowerment and gender equality. When a woman can contribute in planning her family, she can plan the rest of her life. She can become educated, contribute economically to the household and ultimately her family or household social and economic status will increase.
All studies have taught us that the empowerment of women is among the most effective tools for development and economic productivity and reduction of child and maternal mortality, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. In this context, the involvement of men and their support for family planning programmes is crucial.
Development and poverty eradication perspective
This is the area that family planning has been mostly addressed and was the subject of numerous discussions and counterarguments among various schools of thoughts and different opinions. Diverse range of opinions has been expressed and many arguments have been made in favour of or against them.
Putting aside all these differences and irrespective of academic theories or developmental standpoints, the focus could be on one issue: population window
of opportunity or demographic dividends." It is attained when the majority of the population is in the working-age group. This could be one of the contributing factors to economic growth in any given country.
Studies have shown that although Africa generally has a very young population, some African countries like Ghana will have the opportunity to benefit from this "population dividends" and will soon experience a new population structure, in which the population in the working-age group will be dominant.
This can increase the chance for more development and economic growth. Other factors as elaborated by economists and development specialists are also equally important, such as sound economic policies, free trade, fiscal policies and discipline and job creation.
Therefore, family planning is not a tool for fertility control exclusively; it is also a health intervention, a basic human right and one of the means for women empowerment.
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