Population Boom in Ghana--More Contraceptives Needed

This past Saturday was World Contraceptive Day--as important a day from a global perspective as you can imagine. This was highlighted by news from Ghana (and thanks to Population Matters for the heads-up on this) that the population continues to grow at a pace faster than the economy can handle. 

Dr Patrick Aboagye, Director of the Family Health Division of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said currently, the country had a young population of age 0-14, which represented approximately 41.0 percent of the total population.

He said the youthful population had an in-built momentum for further rapid growth when they reached their reproductive ages.

To contain the rate of population growth, the President of the National House of Chiefs, Professor Naa John S. Nabila, appealed to traditional rulers to join hands in the education of the youth about sexuality.

He indicated that since the youth were already sexually active, there was the need to educate them on the right use of condoms and the other contraceptive choices that they had in order to help curb the population boom that was looming in the country.

It is estimated that Ghana needs GH¢906m to carry out a vigorous family planning campaign in the next five years to help curb population growth.

Keep in mind that Ghana already has one of the slower rates of population growth in West Africa, and its economy is helped along by the relatively recent discovery of off-shore oil in the Gulf of Guinea. So, if Ghana is worried about its ability to maintain a good reproductive health system that will keep pushing the birth rate down, you can imagine what is happening in the neighboring countries...