By Esther Wright
The Ministry of Planning and Economic Planning (MoPED), with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on Saturday 10th December 2022 ended a day’s engagement with 49 participants drawn from Members of Parliament of the Sierra Leone Parliamentary Action Group on Population and Development (SLPAG-PD), the Ministries of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs respectively, staff of parliament and the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education on the status of the implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the National Population Policy (NPP).
The event took place at De Wizard Conference Hall, 62 Damballa Road, Bo City, Southern Sierra Leone.
Among the recommendations, Members of Parliament appealed for support to promote the ICPD in their various communities, pointed out that there are lots of traditional and religious barriers to early child marriage, that Islam does not accept family planning except when the life of the mother is in danger, the role of the MoPED in coordinating NGOs and other development projects in communities and that they want UNFPA to track progress yearly on the ICPD and NPP.
According to the MPs, staff of MoDEP do not talk to politicians when they visit their communities, that they are concerned about the increase in the number of homeless people around the country, that in some cases there is duplication of development projects, that some development partners are hypocrites, that UNFPA should work with local partners, that the output/impact of some projects are at variance with the resources invested and that there is need to prioritize ethics in the nursing profession.
Questions were also asked about the status of the Child Marriage Bill/Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill in Parliament and that MoDEP should enrich future engagements with other stakeholders.
Giving an overview of the meeting, the Director of Policy, Planning and Research, MoPED, MDaniel Brima revealed that it was to discuss the status and implementation of the ICPD and appealed to participants to be attentive and make salient contributions.
Peter Koroma, Program Specialist, UNFPA recalled the ICPD held in Nairobi, Kenya in 1994 that was attended by 179 countries including Sierra Leone asserting that the conference endorsed the ICPD policy to among others prioritize human rights issues and poverty reduction and commended Government for reducing maternal deaths by 40% observing that they are also monitoring the progress made on the implementation of the ICPD.
According to Peter Koroma, UNFPA puts premium on reproductive health, that the engagement would help change people’s cultural and traditional practices and underscored that every pregnancy is wanted and that every child is saved.
He also disclosed that they have supported Government to train over 1,300 midwives in two years, that another ICPD would be held in 2024, that countries committed at the last ICPD in Nairobi, Kenya to among others attain universal primary education, reduce infant and child mortality by 2025, access reproductive health and prevent abortion, discourage Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as well as for Government to contribute 1% of its national budget to family planning.
According to Peter Koroma, with support from UNFPA, Government has screened and treated 900 cervical cancer patients, that 800 girls have been integrated back into schools and underlined the need to accelerate all the targets, quality and care services, disclosed the need for a contingency plan to respond to emergencies, strengthen capacity and service delivery in addition to optimizing management of resources.
He went on to reveal that UNFPA provides 90% of family planning commodity services, that the ICPD conference also aimed at ending teenage pregnancy and early marriage, that UNFPA supports the one-stop center and the Police Family Support Unit, Statistics Sierra Leone, the National Civil Registration Authority and other data producers in addition to the development of the Data Protection Policy, promotes innovation and empowerment of valuable youths and women.
In his statement, the Director of Performance Management, MoPED, Dr. Robert Moikowa underlined that the main thrust of the NPP is to effectively manage the country’s population with the aim of reducing the dependency rate in the country and reiterated the need to improve on population planning and management intimating that the ICPD was for countries to prioritize three main areas with respect to population and development like zero unmet need for family planning by 2030, for government to allocate 1% of the health budget to family planning, reduce unmet need from 28% in 2019 -20%, training of midwives, nurse anaesthetics as well as provide an inclusive platform to achieve these and provide the political and financial direction.
Dr. Robert Moikowa further intimated that the engagement is key citing others with Traditional and Religious Leaders and other stakeholders, appealed for collaboration with MPs, commended UNFPA and other development partners and urged participants to disseminate the ICPD and NPP in their various communities.
Presentations were also made on the ICPD Commitments and Progress Report.
Highlights of the engagement were the question and answer session, discussions and commitment from the participants to support the process while the vote of thanks was rendered by Hon. Neneh Lebbie of Bo District representing the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) who commended UNFPA for good work.
The program was chaired by the Chairman of the SLPAG-PD, Hon. Festus Lahai of the SLPP representing Kenema District.
