New population policy target
Friday, 18 December 2009
The draft for a new population policy is reportedly underway, with the rather ambitious target of emulating the Chinese -- single-child families by 2015. Although Bangladesh has, over the past three decades, made very impressive progress in bringing down the birth rate, currently averaging 2.7, it is still not considered good enough, given the dynamics of a youthful population, increasing landlessness and pauperization in one of the world's poorest and most densely-populated countries. According to the Health and Family Welfare Minister, 'Overpopulation is a burden for the country.' The first policy, formulated in 1976 also termed Bangladesh's population as the nation's number one problem. Since then, contraceptive use among married women is said to have jumped from a barely eight per cent to 56 per cent, according to the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey.
Notwithstanding the laudable results, human resource developers in general would consider the attitude of the policy makers to be at fault. Although there is no denying that people in this land-scarce country are far too fertile -- the total population figure is now 148.8 million and is growing by 18 to 20 hundred thousand a year -- the root problem, they say, is not the people but the failure of successive governments to ensure equitable distribution of resources to meet the constitutionally pledged targets of universal education, health care, employment and shelter. Consistently serious investment in these human resource development sectors have always, everywhere, proved to be the best contraceptive. Policy makers therefore ought to enlighten themselves and change their attitude to the overwhelming masses, whose intrinsic value -- and potential -- deserves an honest and unprejudiced assessment, if Bangladesh is to tap the present and future work force to the optimum.
To speed up family planning activities further, the draft means to upgrade the 2004 policy, and to ensure its proper implementation, according to officials speaking to the press. For that, it wishes to rope in twenty other ministries, including Finance, Planning, Education, LGRD, Agriculture, Youth and Sports, Labour -- indeed, every one capable of advancing the cause. Hopefully the exercise will yield dividends in the form of developing robust human resources for individual families and the nation at large. A National Population Council, headed by the Prime Minister herself, has already been formed to function as an inter-ministerial evaluation committee. The Health and Family Welfare Ministry of course would be the leader of the ministry team, broadcasting the policy slogan, 'No more than two children -- but one is better,' and offering a number of incentives, such as facilitating education and access to other services. In keeping with the national pro-girl- child bias, and as a dampener to those pining for a boy, the draft reportedly goes further and encourages a single child, even if it is a female. Such a flawed target, however, is hardly implement-able in Bangladesh's non-authoritarian system. Even if it were, would it be desirable or socio-scientifically tenable for any democratically functioning population?
Advocacy is to be emphasized to raise awareness, as it should be, but the practice of publishing reports, erecting billboards and advertising on city-based media is a sheer waste of money that could be better spent on door-to-door IEC (information, education and communication) in the backward areas where poor women have no say at all about contraception or reproduction. In such situations, husband-wife teams of family planning workers have been known to work wonders, with men being persuaded to go for harmless, non-invasive contraception, including vasectomy, thus sparing their women of the adverse health effects of pills, injections and the like.
First and foremost, the upgraded policy must focus on enhancing the lives of the people, through universal education (that includes primary health care and reproduction), productive employment and other vital inputs, to help get them get out of the vicious cycle of deprivations -- poverty-illiteracy-poor health-low productivity -- that compel the poor to bank on babies for 'social security.'
Notwithstanding the laudable results, human resource developers in general would consider the attitude of the policy makers to be at fault. Although there is no denying that people in this land-scarce country are far too fertile -- the total population figure is now 148.8 million and is growing by 18 to 20 hundred thousand a year -- the root problem, they say, is not the people but the failure of successive governments to ensure equitable distribution of resources to meet the constitutionally pledged targets of universal education, health care, employment and shelter. Consistently serious investment in these human resource development sectors have always, everywhere, proved to be the best contraceptive. Policy makers therefore ought to enlighten themselves and change their attitude to the overwhelming masses, whose intrinsic value -- and potential -- deserves an honest and unprejudiced assessment, if Bangladesh is to tap the present and future work force to the optimum.
To speed up family planning activities further, the draft means to upgrade the 2004 policy, and to ensure its proper implementation, according to officials speaking to the press. For that, it wishes to rope in twenty other ministries, including Finance, Planning, Education, LGRD, Agriculture, Youth and Sports, Labour -- indeed, every one capable of advancing the cause. Hopefully the exercise will yield dividends in the form of developing robust human resources for individual families and the nation at large. A National Population Council, headed by the Prime Minister herself, has already been formed to function as an inter-ministerial evaluation committee. The Health and Family Welfare Ministry of course would be the leader of the ministry team, broadcasting the policy slogan, 'No more than two children -- but one is better,' and offering a number of incentives, such as facilitating education and access to other services. In keeping with the national pro-girl- child bias, and as a dampener to those pining for a boy, the draft reportedly goes further and encourages a single child, even if it is a female. Such a flawed target, however, is hardly implement-able in Bangladesh's non-authoritarian system. Even if it were, would it be desirable or socio-scientifically tenable for any democratically functioning population?
Advocacy is to be emphasized to raise awareness, as it should be, but the practice of publishing reports, erecting billboards and advertising on city-based media is a sheer waste of money that could be better spent on door-to-door IEC (information, education and communication) in the backward areas where poor women have no say at all about contraception or reproduction. In such situations, husband-wife teams of family planning workers have been known to work wonders, with men being persuaded to go for harmless, non-invasive contraception, including vasectomy, thus sparing their women of the adverse health effects of pills, injections and the like.
First and foremost, the upgraded policy must focus on enhancing the lives of the people, through universal education (that includes primary health care and reproduction), productive employment and other vital inputs, to help get them get out of the vicious cycle of deprivations -- poverty-illiteracy-poor health-low productivity -- that compel the poor to bank on babies for 'social security.'