Country: Bangladesh Topic: Population Growth To: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh From: Md. Saidur Rahman Subject: Population Growth in Bangladesh: One Miracle Happened, Time for Next Miracle Date: 1/26/14 At the time of independence in 1971, Bangladesh has a fertility rate of 6.9 children per women with a child mortality rate before age 5 of 22.1% per hundred children (Gapminder, 2013). Currently, the country has a fertility rate of 2.2 children per women and child mortality rate before the age is 4.1% per hundred children (Gapminder, 2013; World Bank, 2013). Currently, the population of Bangladesh is 154.7 million (World Bank, 2012) with a population growth of 1.19%, a significant reduction from 2.82% in 1979 (World Bank, 2012). Life expectancy has also increased to 70 years (World Bank, 2012). The country has accomplished significant success in the areas of child marriage, infant mortality rate, teen fertility rate and maternal mortality rate. A miracle has happened over the years in the world’s most densely populated country. The country’s population density is 1,174 per square kilometer (World Bank, 2012). Nationwide large scale Family Planning Program and awareness campaigns both by government helped the country to improve the demographic statistics in the country. Bangladesh family planning program, led by the Directorate General of Family Planning throughout the 1970 and 1980s, has become one of the most successful such programs in the world. In private sector, BRAC, Marie Stopes International and NGOs funded through USAID projects like the NGO Service Delivery Project and the Smiling Sun Franchise Program also been instrumental to bring positive demographic changes in the country (USAID, 2013). These programs have trained large-scale of health workers and service promoter networks to provide family planning services to the citizen (USAID, 2013). However, the country still suffers from population problem despite the tremendous effort of the government. Family Planning programs lately failed to achieve the set target in the absence of dedicated field workers and leadership. With the increase of elderly population, countries dependency burden is also rising which will exacerbate the unemployment problem of the country. A considerable difference in fertility rare exist between rural and urban area where the total fertility rate is 3 among rural women and 2.4 for urban women. Migration to urban areas is also posing a serious problem by increasing the urban density; 85% of the rural migration are concentrated in the four major cities in the country. Even though, the population growth rate has been controlled significantly; country’s target to achieve a net reductive Rate of 1 by 2016 seems like unachievable due to the lack of policy implementation and resources. Current Population Policy of the country (MoHFW, 2004 under revision), considered these issues seriously and set important objectives to achieve progress in the demographic areas where the country is lagging behind. The policy focuses at reducing Net Reproductive Rate, addressing the causes of maternal mortality rate, reducing adolescent marriage and pregnancy, developing human resources, reducing child mortality rate and providing nutritional knowledge. The policy took into account current health situations of the country adequately and set their agenda accordingly. With the country entering into an inertia of population problem, government’s timely respond will help the country to deal with it properly. Yet, the policy failed to formulate strategies on issues like revised family planning program with broader focus, specific focus to reduce fertility rate in rural areas, decentralized and equitable industrialization across the country and large scale employment generation. Some of these issues require a coordination among between different ministries and government agencies which has been absence in the policy as well. An effective implementation strategy to maximize the resources for effective and efficient use of already existing resources has not been considered within the policy framework. A revised policy incorporating these emergent issues will be more instrumental to combat the population problems Bangladesh facing; a more comprehensive population policy may lead the country to next miracle. Source: gapminder.org/ data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN/countries/BD-8S-XM?display=default youtube/watch?v=jAJC2YAJw_A mohfw.gov.bd/ mohfw.gov.bd/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=93&lang=en https://google/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_grow&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:BGD:IND:MMR shopsproject.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bangladesh%20Family%20Planning%20Private%20Health%20Sector%20Assessment%20Brief.pdf respond-project.org/pages/files/6_pubs/project_briefs/Project-Brief-8-Mayer-Hashi-Policy-Change-September2012-FINAL-forweb.pdf prb.org/pdf09/fp-econ-bangladesh.pdf archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=264090
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:37:00 +0000
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