Tanzania: Controlling Population Growth Vital for Meaningful Economic Growth

ECONOMISTS observe that countries across the globe with fast population growth rates are likely to continue to suffer from poverty even if their economies are growing steadily.

Reports issued by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that Tanzania’s economy is growing on an annual average of 6.4 per cent while the country’s population growth is on an average of 2.9 per cent per annum.

As the country prepares for the next population census, there is concern that more effort is required to manage the fast growing population to accelerate meaningful economic growth.Recently, Members of Parliament listened to the National Development Plan for 2012/2013 during the seventh meeting of the 10th Parliament and some of the members were up in arms against what they termed as the government’s omission of funding reproductive health in the development plan.

Members of Parliament warned that continuously ignoring reproductive health in development plans aggravates the problem of failing to plan and cater for the growing population.The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Community Development, Ms Jenister Mhagama, MP for Peramiho noted that failure of the economy to change people’s lives shows that the government is not doing enough to manage and control population growth.

“It is high time we put more efforts in controlling population growth and the government should ensure that family planning services are easily accessible,” she charged. Ms Mhagama, who is also the chairperson of the MPs group for safe motherhood, said failure to manage population growth is costly because the government has to spend more resources on maternal health care services delivery.

Under normal circumstances when the population growth continues unchecked, the chances are that many people do not access quality social services such as education and economic opportunities, thus the government spends more money providing these services.

Mhagama argued that allocation of funds towards family planning would profoundly reduce expenditure on social services as a smaller population would reduce demands on government for the services. Quoting the 2007 UNFPA report on population trends, the MP said investing one US Dollar per person per year on reproductive health could save the government 49 US dollars per person annually which could be used for other social services.

Mr Albert Ntabaliba (Manyovu-CCM) noted that it is not enough for the government to point out challenges of fast population growth without suggesting the way forward. “When you talk of a 2.9 per cent annual population growth rate without telling the people whether or not to reproduce or plan their families better does not help anyone,” he argued.

He was also of the view that the government should seriously address the matter and ensure that population is manageable. Ms Mary Mwanjelwa (Special Seats – CCM) challenged the government over conflicting figures concerning reproductive health. She said while the main goal of the five-year development plan is to reduce maternal deaths to 175 for every 100,000 births, the Long Term Perspective Plan which ends in 2016 aims at reducing maternal deaths to 220 per 100,000 births.

“These figures are conflicting, they must be rectified or else we will lose direction,” she warned. Responding to the reactions by MPs, the Executive Secretary of the President’s Office, Planning Commission, Dr Philip Mpango, said there was need to control population growth for the economy to grow sustainably.

He, however, noted that many of the contemporary family planning methods were not acceptable in many societies due to cultural beliefs. “Cultural beliefs make it difficult to introduce some of the modern family planning methods that help to control population growth,” he added. Dr Mpango said girls should stay longer in schools including tertiary institutions as a way of reducing the number of births per woman.

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent conception. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception, the prevention of fertilisation, contragestion and abortion which is the removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus which according to Tanzanian laws is illegal.

Contraception includes barrier methods, such as condoms or diaphragm, hormonal contraception, also known as oral contraception and injectable contraceptives. In Tanzania, only 34 in 100 married women give birth to an average of six children each in rural areas as compared to three babies in urban women.

Thirty women in 100 in rural areas want to use at least one form of family planning methods but cannot access the services; this number has increased from 24 in every 100 women in 2005. Unfortunately, from reasons ranging from poor maternal health care to having too many children too soon, maternal mortality rate has remained high at 454 in every 100,000 live births.

Family planning saves the lives of women and babies and contributes to the nation’s socio-economic development. Tanzania is one of the 189 nations that endorsed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in September 2000, as part of the internationally agreed-upon development goals at the General Assembly of the United Nations which targets, among other things, the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality including increased access to family planning. Problems facing family planning in developing countries, Tanzania included, are inadequate political support and funding for family planning services.

AllAfrica.com