William N-Lanjerborr Jalulah
2 July 2009
opinion
Bolgatanga — THE UPPER East Regional Officer of the National Population Council, Mr. Alosibah Azam, says population variables such as population growth rate, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and morbidity, are all indicators of the level of development.
He said population size, structure, spatial distribution and quality, with respect to education, health and employment, are affected all by development planning process, noting that these population variables were not static, but change through time.
Addressing municipal and district budget and planning officers in Bolgatanga, at an advocacy seminar on integrating population variables into development planning, the officer suggested that human-centred development planning should take into account these population factors at every stage of planning.
Mr. Azam said the extent to which population had been integrated into development planning could be traced from 1969, when the first comprehensive national population policy was promulgated in Ghana.
According to him, the policy was founded on the principle that "unless birth rates can be brought down to parallel falling death rates, Ghana's population will climb at a rate dangerous to continuing prosperity, and the children of the next few generations will be born into a world where their very numbers may condemn them to life-long poverty."
He observed that district planning officers had little influence in critical decision making at the assemblies. "Considering the desire of political appointees at the district level to let their constituents applaud them for their efforts in development, many of them consider the construction of infrastructural facilities, which could be pointed to without any conscious efforts, at factoring population into these development projects," he stated.
Mr. Azam regretted that as a result of this, the programme of integrating population into development planning was often sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
The limited number of persons with demographic and planning background, the problem of data, inadequate capacity building for planning-related personnel, frequent transfers and resignations of trained personnel, partly due to low remuneration and motivation, were mentioned as some of the challenges facing the assemblies.
He called for the need to embark on training programmes, not only necessarily for academic purposes, but mainly towards equipping personnel in charge of development planning at the district level to understand the relationship between population and development planning, and be able to use population as the fundamental basis for their planning activities and programmes.
Mr. Azam hinted that before the end of this year, his office would organise a training programme for district and municipal planning and budget officers. There would be another training programme for medial personnel of population reporting.
A planning officer at the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), Mr. Philip Yinbil, suggested that district and municipal planning officers should accompany their reports with pictures before submitting them, for easy scrutiny.
To this end, their respective assemblies are expected to provide them with digital cameras to enable them take pictures of all the projects executed in their assemblies.
With the exception of the Bawku Municipal, Garu-Tempane, and Kassena-Nankana district assemblies, all the remaining five district assemblies, and Bolgatanga municipal assembly, were represented. The regional office of the National Population Council organised the seminar.
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