Unplanned population growth is a major impediment to development goal 2041

Bangladesh will fail in its bid to become a developed nation by 2041 if its population growth is not brought under control, a family planning expert from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday. Sirazul Islam, the secretary of the ministry’s Medical Education and Family Welfare Division, said a proper plan must be formulated by the government and implemented within the next few years. “The government wants to achieve its goal of a developed country by 2041, but I am afraid the main obstacle to getting there would be unplanned population growth,” Sirazul Islam said. “We need proper plans to control this if we want to achieve our target.” The warnings were made at a partnership workshop on "Acceleration Action to attain the Bangladesh FP 2020 Commitments" jointly organised by Ministry of Health and Family Planning and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The government has committed US$400 million to cover 39.4 million eligible couples by 2021, and pledged US$40 million per year over the same period to reduce the resource gap for family planning services by 50% from the current level. In Bangladesh, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) and Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) control are also aligned with the government’s 7th Five Year Plan and Sector Wide Programme 2017-2021. The revised objectives include reducing the TFR from 2.3 to 2.0 and increasing the CPR from 62% to 75%. Other targets are increasing the share of Long Acting and Permanent Methods (LAPM) from 8.1% to 20%, reducing unmet needs from 12% to 10%, and reducing discontinuation rate of family planning methods from 30% to 20%. To achieve these goals, the government will give fieldworkers tablet computers and e-Toolkits for the delivery of capacity development, and develop e-Learning courses to empower them with ICT knowledge and skills. Bangladesh will also include a service provider with reproductive health skills within its rapid response teams, and mainstream the minimum initial service package (MISP) for reproductive health in crisis into its emergency response. The partnership workshop was attended by: Quazi Md Mohiul Islam, additional secretary (Population, FW and Law), ME&FWD; Abu Jamil Faisel, CSO focal point for FP 2020; Kazi Mustafa Sarwar, director general DGFP; Eva Maria Ros, country support director, FP 2020; Chonghee C Hwang, manager (Asia) of FP 2020; and Sathyanaranan Doraiswamy, chief of health, UNFPA.