The Population Association of Nigeria (PAN) in collaboration with the Partnership for Advocacy in child and family health @Scale (PACFaH@Scale), a project funded by Bill and Melinda Gates, anchored by the Development Research and Projects Center (dRPC), will join other experts in a day-long roundtable to discuss possible solutions to the problems of Nigeria’s population explosion.
The session will kick off shortly after PAN’s annual conference is held in Abuja today with the theme; “Rising Wave of Global Insecurity: Meeting Population Needs for Sustainable Development in the 21st Century.”
Other sub-themes will focus on gender, population and development, population and health, and population and demographic dividends.
The panel session comes at a good time as Nigeria recently launched the revised National Population Policy for Sustainable Development.
The dRPC PAS project seeks to catalyze action through dialogue, bringing together relevant policy makers, experts and practitioners to deliberate on strategic pathways for implementing policy content and updating key objectives.
The dRPC said population growth should not just be an issue for the National Population Commission (NPC), but a collective responsibility for all.
“Population matters to all policy makers and government MDAs dealing with the economy, social welfare, job creation and infrastructure development.”
President of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), Umar Jabbi; Director of the Department of Family Health at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), Salma Kolo, and Executive Director of the International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH), Moji Makanjuola, are among other panelists expected at the event.
Stay on this page as PREMIUM TIMES provides live updates of the session which is scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m.
3:07 p.m.: The first panelist, Olusesan Makinde, Managing Partner of Viable Knowledge Masters, speaks on the population dividend. He said population growth is a problem the country needs to tackle.
3:08 p.m.: The second panelist is the director of the Family Health Department of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), Salma Kolo. She said the country is not comfortable with the situation of population growth. Ms. Kolo said Nigeria lacks the resources to cater to the growing population.
3:10 p.m.: She said the Muhammadu Buhari administration is 100% committed to managing the people in the country.
3:11 p.m. She said the president has taken concrete steps to control population growth in the country. She said the department’s role is to implement federally approved policies.
3:12 p.m.: She said that the most vulnerable group and most affected by the consequences of population growth are women and children, especially those in rural communities.
3:13 p.m .: She said the Nigerian government is adopting a method of controlling fertility to slow down population growth.
3:14 p.m .: Ms Kolo said the government was doing its best to control population growth, especially within the states. She said at least 10 states have pledged to achieve this goal.
3:15 p.m.: Ms. Kolo says providing family planning commodities is important if the country is to prevent a population explosion.
3:16 p.m.: She said the Nigerian government is also committed to achieving the 2030 family planning target. advance policy,” she said.
3:17 p.m.: She said free family planning supplies were provided by the government in federal facilities. She explained that efforts are underway to ensure that these free products are available at private health facilities.
3:18 p.m.: She said it was necessary to link education and development to control population growth.
3:19 p.m.: She said that most women in rural communities are uneducated and lack knowledge of family planning.
3:20 p.m.: She says a majority of them reject family planning advice because of a lack of knowledge about it.
3:21 p.m.: Ms. Kolo said that if more women were educated on the benefits of fertility control, the country would make progress in controlling its population growth.
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3:22 p.m.: She said religious and traditional leaders can be used as tools to influence some of the decisions women make to ensure they lead healthy lives.
3:23 p.m.: Ms. Kolo has concluded her speech and the next panelists are due to speak
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