Dr Leticia Adelaide Appiah, the Executive Director, National Population Council, (NPC) says family planning holds the key to addressing migration issues in the country. The Executive Director in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the country’s population and migration, said the country was good in policy formulation but weak in implementation, saying ‘We have to know that when people are born, they will be educated and need employment. ‘So, it is important to regulate the number of children to be born to plan on how to provide better education and employment to avoid wastage in the system. ‘ Dr Appiah said it would be difficult for a country to provide better socio-economic development to its citizens if one person could have more than 15 children, putting pressure on the resources of the government. She said, ‘Having children you cannot take care of is a habit that supports poverty, and I call on the government and all stakeholders to support interventions to embrace family planning methods.’ Family planning, she stressed, was an economic intervention that would take people out of poverty, adding ‘You cannot ignore the role of family planning and the payment of taxes and expect a civilized, democratic society’. She said population dynamics were influenced by fertility, mortality, and migration, adding that if a country could not manage its births, it would be difficult to manage its migration patterns. ‘If you managed your birth and you are healthy, then you prolonged your life expectancy and have time to stay in your country and develop your human capital and ensure sustainable development,’ she said. Dr Appiah said Singapore and other developed countries prioritised family planning as part of their human capital acceleration for sustained economic growth. The Executive Director said Africa remained poor because ‘we are using emotions, superstition, and arrogance to develop, rather than Science.’ She said it was worrying that the country was investing in the training of human resources only for the people to later leave for greener pastures. ‘It is taxes that build a country, not remittances. If we allow the country’s trained human resources to leave the country and pay taxes there, and we get remittances, then we are just shooting ourselves in the foot. ‘No country has developed by allowing their skilled labour to migrate to other countries, and we have to think quantity and quality along the value chain where, when you are educated, you get employed,’ she said. The 2021 Population and Housing Census showed that the country’s provisional population is 30.8 million, showing an increase of 6.1 million people from the 2010 population figures, which stood at 24.6 million. Out of the figure, 71.1 percent werenon-migrants, with the remaining 28.9 percent being migrants. The Census Thematic Report on Migration has revealed that ten out of the 16 regions had more people migrating outside the country, with the Volta region having the largest net loss of people. Greater Accra, according to the 2021 Census, is now the most populous region in the country with 5,446,237 figures, followed by Ashanti region with 5,432,485 population.
Source: Ghana News Agency