Prime Minister of Pakistan, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani stressed an effective population management program to ensure better utilization of resources and provision of better services to the masses. He said this while addressing a function to mark the World Population Day on July 11, 2009, at PM Secretariat, Islamabad.
The theme of this year’s World Population Day was “Responding to economic crises: Investing in women is a smart choice”.
The Prime Minister was the Chief Guest at the Convention. The guest of honour were Daniel B. Baker, Representative of UNFPA and Begum Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Advisor to PM.
A large number of delegates from both private and public sector, Head of Foreign Missions, Ministers, Senators, MNAs & MPAs, donors, diplomats, senior bureaucrats, print and electronic media and CSOs attended the convention.
Low GDP growth along with high population growth rates had put Pakistan in a situation where it was hard to provide relief to the common man. The country’s diverse problems could not be addressed by economic measures alone and there was a need to supplement these through effective measures to check population growth.
He said that despite concerted efforts, Pakistan had made only modest progress in controlling the population growth to a level that would allow the country to improve the standard of living of its people. Though population growth rate of 3.8 percent in early 80s had been lowered to 1.8 percent however, it needed to be further reduced to 1.3 percent or less by year 2020.
This would give Pakistan a breathing space it needs to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Gilani mentioned that millions of women around the globe were suffering because of insufficient necessary tools including better education and health. In Pakistan as well, a large number of women die during pregnancy. Repeated child bearing by anemic and malnourished women result in high infant and maternal mortality rates.
The Prime Minister said the government encouraged women to work side by side with men and mentioned appointment of women at key posts including Speaker National Assembly, as federal minister for population development, as Special Assistant to PM on social welfare and State minister on economic affairs who presented budget in the Assembly as first woman in country’s history.
He also asked the concerned ministries including Finance and Planning for ensuring availability of resources for addressing the issue of population to derive maximum benefits for the masses.
He announced regularization of the services of Social Mobilizers and Medical Doctors working under Population Welfare Program at Federal and Provincial level.
Directions would be issued to the Ministry of Population Welfare to immediately propose a Governing Body at par with Pakistan Nursing Council for the accreditation of diploma of Family Welfare Workers and also to prepare a scheme for launching the initiative of female-village based family planning workers for consideration by the Planning Commission.
On proposal regarding linking the population equation with poverty reduction program the Ministry of Population Welfare was asked to prepare a comprehensive proposal in consultation with concerned institutions for consideration of the Cabinet.
He also lauded the efforts of private sector, civil society and international organizations including UNFPA, USAID, DFID, KFW Germany & KCCI for their continued assistance.
Later on, the Prime Minister presented Award to Dr. Islam Hamid, Chairman, Health & Education Sub-Committee on behalf of KCCI for rendering its services in the field of health and population. Besides this ten more awards were honored to different institutions including Provincial Government officials, local and International NGOs.