Today, July 11, 2017, is being observed by the international community as the World Population Day. In 1989, the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recommended that the date should be observed as the World Population Day to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues such as, family planning, gender equality, poverty, maternal health, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human rights.

The theme for this year’s celebration is ‘Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations’.

Family planning is a medical and social activity, which allows people to attain their desired number of children and determine the spacing of pregnancies. It is said to be achieved through the use of contraceptive methods and treatment of infertility.

Access to safe, voluntary family planning is a human right. It is also central to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and is a key factor in reducing poverty.

Family planning has been described as one of the best approaches to global development. It is said that when women and girls have access to family planning, they will be able to complete their education, create or seek better economic opportunities and the nation at large will benefit from it.

In an interview she granted to Channels TV on the daily morning programme, Sunrise Daily, Nike Adedeji, National Programme Specialist, UNFPA, explained how family planning could help bring about economic growth and national building.

“In 2012, it was observed that about 225 million women globally, have a desire to access family planning services  but for one reason or the other, they were not able to achieve this,” Adedeji said.

What progress has Nigeria made so far?

The Nigerian government has made contraceptive free through a policy that was formulated in 2011 which made contraceptive free in public health facilities across the 36 states of the country. With donations from international bodies,(United Kingdom, Canada, UNFPA, etc.) raised $12 million annually with a counterpart funding of $3 million from the Nigerian government  to purchase contraceptive. Before 2012, Nigeria was only procuring about $2 million worth of contraceptive.

Due to improvement by the government in funding the purchase of contraceptive, a survey, which was conducted by UNFPA last year, indicated that the contraceptive prevalence rate has risen from 9.8% as at NDHS 2013 to about 17% (modern contraceptive prevalence) which shows a significant progress. In addition, the new users of family planning have increased from about 500,000 in 2012 to about 5 million as at 2016 bringing the current users to about 10 million in all states of the country.

Family planning and economic development

The NDHS 2013 indicated that the total fertility rate in Nigeria is 5.5 per woman (total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman can have in her lifetime). This figure varies across geo-political zones. It means that in the northern part of the country, women could have about 7-10 children in their lifetime. The implication is this, Nigeria with a population figure of about 192 million based on the estimates of the National Population Commission (NPC). If we continue to grow at the present rate, which is about 3.2 annual growth rate, by 2050, Nigeria will have a population of about 400 million. Now currently, the United States is about a population of 326 million (based on the latest United Nations estimates) and the United States has a land mass, which is about ten times the size of Nigeria. Therefore, if we keep increasing unabated to 2050 and our land resources are not going to grow because it is static, we will have four times our population on the same land mass. So the reality is, there is need to help the country manage it population so that there can be significant economic growth.

There are data that can help us manage our population, even data from other countries too. For instance, the Asian Tigers were able to manage their population. Our population to us is the best resources we have as a country, most importantly the young people. Right now, Nigeria’s population pyramid shows we have a large population of young people who are between age 15-25 constitute about 30% of the population and all young people (age 15-45) constitute about 44% of the population of Nigeria.

These young people needs to understand that they cannot continue to have average birth rate of 5.5 because the implication of that is that the population will continue to grow. Using a shift, The Demographic Shift, which was encountered by the Asian Tigers, Nigeria as a country can take advantage of the young population we have now and make it productive by giving them good health, good education, livelihood skills and ensure that the population who are below (who are dependent) are not growing at the rate we have now. There is a misconception among youth, a youth might say we don’t have family and by so, we don’t have family to plan. Young people should learn how to plan their family even before they have the family.

Considering the society we find ourselves, some cultures and religions don’t see the use of family planning which is a dilemma we face as a country now,in ensuring large prevalence of contraceptive use in the country. There is the need to get the support of the traditional and religious leaders to give the right information to the people because people have been given all sorts of wrong information about family planning.

For people who have fear of side effects of using family planning, from NDHS 2013, about 37% of people who initiated family planning discontinue, and this is linked to the quality of counselling of service they receive at the first time. One of the solutions is build capacity of health workers on how to give quality counselling to women and men who want to use a family planning method.

There are number of choices that can be made using any family planning method.  Different methods range from pills, injectable, intrauterine device (IUD) which can be inserted, implant which can be put on the arm. If there is a method that is not working, one can switch to another. However, the most important thing to do is for women to know the method that is best suitable for them to use.