NAIROBI, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) – The government has decried high population growth rate which it said is one of the key constraints in achieving Kenya’s long-term economic blue print, Vision 2030. Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya told journalists in Nairobi that the current growth rate of three percent needs to be reduced in order for the country to develop.
“The government will not put an emphasis on the number of children per family but we will encourage them to have the number that they can afford to take care of in terms of food, health care and education,” Mr Oparanya said during the re launch of the national family campaign which has received support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), German Development Agency (DSW) and UN Population Agency (UNFPA).
“We hope to emulate other developing countries such as China which have had a very effective policy to limit rapid population but without putting an emphasis on the number of children,” the planning minister said.
Mr Oparanya said the government has identified family planning as the missing link in attaining development. “If we start now to prioritize family planning it is not too late to achieve middle income status in 18 years as the current population growth of three percent is adding one million new people annually,” he said.
The minister added that the draft population policy on national development will soon be taken to cabinet for approval and thereafter tabled in parliament to be passed into law. “We have decided to re-launch the family planning because this country has a huge problem of population growth,” he said.
The planning minister said that the demand for government services including water, education and health government cannot keep up with the pace of the rapid population growth. “For us to achieve development for all, it is important that we manage our population as our resources are limited,” he said.
The minister said that the new programme which help make family planning a norm at the household and community level. “Kenya was the first Sub Saharan African country to initiate a national family planning in 1967, but cut backs in government expenditure affected the programme,” he said. “The country’s leaders are all in agreement, that repositioning family planning is the best option especially during this period when there is a worldwide economic recession,” he added.
Mr Oparanya said that the country’s economic blue print has identified rapid population growth as one of the major constraints to socio-economic development so no effort will be spared in our national efforts towards management of population for prosperity and as a critical strategy for freeing the available limited resources for socio-economic development in Kenya.
Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Planning, Dr Edward Sambili said that even internationally it has been recognised that there is need to reposition family planning especially in developing countries with high fertility, mortality and rapid population rates. Sambili said that the prospects for the successful implementation of population and family planning programmes are bright.
“The new constitution calls for access to all for reproductive health including family planning,” he said. He added that total fertility rate which has been declining in the 1980s and early 1990 stalled at about five children per woman since 1993 despite substantial gains recorded in childhood mortality reduction between 2003 and 2010. He said Kenya’s ministry of health will spend 7 million US dollars in the 2011/2012 financial year for the provision of family planning.
Dr Sambili added that the improvement in Kenya’s demographic and health indicators is closely correlated with family planning programmes. “This support started to dwindle in the early 1990s due to the emergence of other competing issues that were highly prioritized in the global and national agenda including the HIV pandemic,” he said.
“This crowded out the then vibrant family planning programme resulting into a situation of diminished resources leading to near collapse of key components specifically the community based distribution and national family planning campaign,” he added. The PS said that increased education attainment beyond secondary level especially for women has been observed to be highly correlated with improved socio-economic development indicators including lower fertility and childhood mortality rates. (Xinhua)
