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Minister for collective approach to address population boom

 

Minister of Health Atupele Muluzi has called for a collective approach to address population boom in the country by embracing the use of family planning methods, especially for the youths.

The minister warned that failure to use such methods has proven to increase the high risk of unsafe pregnancies resulting in maternal and neonatal mortality.

Speaking during the official commemoration of World Population Day at Michongwe Primary School on Thursday in Ntaja, Machinga under the theme Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations, Muluzi said it is high time the country encouraged the youth to use family planning methods as one way of controlling the growing population.

Muluzi: We will take a holistic approach

He said: “The issue of family planning for the youth in the country still remains sensitive. That is why we would like to take a holistic approach where we will involve traditional and religious leaders to help government to understand better and help us plan for the future while at the same time foster development.”

The minister said the country’s family planning goal as committed at the London Summit on Population in 2012 is to achieve a modern contraceptive prevalence rate of 60 percent for all women with specific focus on the 15-20 age group.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) deputy country representative Rogaia Abdlerahim said investing in family planning is vital as it yields economic gains that propel development and it is critical to the success of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

She said access to sexual and reproductive health, including contraception or family planning and maternal health for all women and young people is a human right and critical to saving lives, advancing development and promoting gender equality; hence, her organisation’s involvement with the current Miss Malawi Cecelia Khofi to be an ambassador for change, especially to the youth of the country.

Said Abdlerahim: “On this World Population Day, I wish to reaffirm UNFPA’s and the UN’s full support to efforts by government and all partners to promote and place family planning at the very heart of national and global development efforts.”

Malawi’s population, which is dominated by the youth at 60 percent, is currently estimated at 17.2 million and projected to increase further to 43.1 million by 2050.

Experts have observed that in Malawi, use of modern family planning methods among currently married women has increased in the last decades from seven percent in 1992 to 58.6 percent in 2016 followed by a corresponding decline in total fertility rate from 7.6 to 4.4 children over the same period.

However, teenage pregnancy rate has increased from 26 percent in 2010 to 29 percent in 2016.

Globally, World Population Day is commemorated on July 11, but Malawi commemorated it on July 26 because the actual day coincided with the London Family Planning Summit where donors and stakeholders attended.

 

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3 Comments

  1. I don’t understand as to why this man is still holding ministerial position shifting here and there but he’s not delivering what Malawians want…This man as lawyer osampatsa kukhala COE bwa… or PS … komaso ma PS apamalawi akuyenera kukhala kukhala ma abwana ake because they work hard than minister and they present in parliament… they can do all the jobs okha…. sizamuluzi…uyu nde mukuti akufuna kukhala president? Malawi nde waphweka bwanji amuna adapita… this MAN DOESN’T DO ANYTHING FOR MALAWIANS NGATI NDUNA… WAPANGAKO CHANI IYEYU?

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