Birth-control policy vital to manage population — Malawi Parliament

Malawi Parliament wants the country to start pursuing policies intended to slow population growth by embarking on family planning methods such as  reducing childbearing in order to manage the population which has grown tremendously to 17 million.

Lunguzi: Smaller and manageable families needed

The country’s population could hit 30 million by 2030, reports suggest.

Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Juliana Lunguzi, said government and other stakeholders should work hard in managing the country’s population.

“The current situation on population management is unstatainable and we want organisations to streamline population manaegement in their projects like Results-Based Financiang for bMaternal and Neonatal Health (RBF4MNH) has done,” said Lunguzi.

She was speaking at Kalumba Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) Makwangwala in Ntcheu .

For reducing child births, Lunguzi  said with support from RBF4MNH, they are taking Parliament to the village to persuade people on the importance of  having smaller and manageable familes.

It’s also girls’ education and women’s rights — starting with an end to child marriages — for educated women mostly have fewer children.

Family planning is morally laudable because of its contribution to family well-being, women’s health, and the prevention of abortion.

Commentator Alick Nyasulu argues that a  rapidly rising population will impact negatively to economic growth.

“It will need more food and, hence more land It will need more health facilities and the health system will need to cope with it. An increasing demand of health services does not only mean a huge health budget but an education budget to training more health workers like doctors, nurses and midwives and so on. It also means that training institutions must expand their capacity and introduce more programmes than they do at the moment.

“It is not just the social services like health and education that will need to rise but energy and housing. It could be the right time to set a framework that ensures many Malawians, especially in the rural areas are connected to the national grid. Frameworks that deliberately increase generating capacity of electricity more than we need should be a guiding philosophy,” comments Nyasulu.

He states that population threat is real and has many consequences on sustainable growth.

“Sustainable growth also entails that our environment is protected to minimise natural calamities. Demand for housing might as well mean destruction of the environment through cutting of trees for timber or bricks. We got to think through all this. It might also mean demand for more fuel wood if electricity is not accessible to many or it is unreliable,” Nyasulu pointed out.

If you think family planning is expensive, you haven’t priced babies.

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Kautano
7 years ago

Health expert, what plans have you put in place to help those who wanna use birth control, as we hear that these family planning helps erectile dysfunction in men and decreased libido and desire or you just want us men to be Gosho 4 ever? bcoz you just speak advantage of birth control but you don’t shade more light on disadvantage. so tell us.

Kaitano
7 years ago

Health expert, what plans have you put in place to help those who wanna use birth control, as we hear that these family planning helps erectile dysfunction in men & decreased libido in men,and desire or u just want pipo to sleep with their wives like their sisters? any solutions to that?

chodziwadziwa
chodziwadziwa
7 years ago

Alibe mwana uyu…sakudziwa zomwe akunena.

kings
7 years ago

That’s the way to go, it is as well time overdue.

Harawara
Harawara
7 years ago

I would like to differ with Alick. High population is not the cause of poverty in Mw. It is the lack of basic necessities because because of lack of technologies and highly trained manpower to produce and process more goods and services. The world has examples of more overpopulated countries than Mw that are developed. Research has also shown that countries with high population densities are more prosperous than those with low density . Consider Nigeria here in Africa (first if not second biggest economy) India, China, Netherlands.If Nigeria was not corrupt with that big population it would have more… Read more »

zangaphe
7 years ago

tikunena za birth control ndife tinabadwa kale. kodi tikufuna ena asabadwe? paje amalawi nsanje ife zathu zikayenda sitifuna za ene ziyende. Kodi mungo tizakhala 30,000, 000 tizakhala pakhomo panu?

John K Black
7 years ago

We need to meet the unmet need for family planning. This means education, let’s put sex education including family planning in the school curriculum. And let’s make sure that (as opposed to medication) family planning is always available at all hospitals, clinics, and shops, as well as places where people can get involved in un-planned activities such as bottle stores.
https://motherlandfatherland.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/sex/

GONANI
GONANI
7 years ago

Very important point, we actually need to make this, a law. Two or three kids per family as maximum, and no
bearing kids before the age of 21 for ladies. Any child marriages should be criminalised and anybody that
breaks the law should be arrested and sent to jail. Let us learn from Japan, a highly industrialised and rich country but
used this type of law to control unnecessary spurring of population.

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