President Muhammadu Buhari has announced a new birth control for Nigerians to amongst other things, address high fertility rates in the country.
In a statement cited by BizWatch Nigeria on Thursday, February 3, 2022, Buhari, according to his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, launched the Revised National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development.
Under this newly-introduced policy, the federal government intends to expose Nigerians to modern contraceptive methods, which is believed would put in check the high fertility rates.
“The policy emphasizes the urgency to address Nigeria’s sustained high fertility rate, through expanding access to modern family planning, counselling, and commodities as well as promote births spacing.
“This will enable Nigeria to achieve rapid fertility control, improve the health of women, adolescents, newborns and children, and other population groups,” the President was quoted as saying in the statement.
Noting that Nigeria’s population, which is the highest in Africa, is hinged on a youthful population, with more than 72% of them being below 30-years-old, the President said it underlines the importance of investing in quality education of young people (particularly girls), human capital development, and advancing the holistic effort to achieve the significant demographic transition.
“These levels have implications for sustained population growth and narrowed prospects to achieving population management, facilitating sufficient demographic transition, harnessing our demographic endowment and eventually realizing sustainable development,” he added.
What this means
BizWatch Nigeria understands that with this development, the likelihood of having children living in poverty, the share of them in households that only depend on minimum wage to survive, and the share of them living in single-parent homes, would significantly reduce.
These newly-introduced birth control measures may not only reduce the child poverty rates but may also affect later poverty rates in adults.
