Family planning vital for Ghana's MDGs success: VP

Family planning was a critical element of success for achieving and sustaining the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty in the country, Ghana's Vice President John Mahama said on Monday.

"It is time that Ghana takes back the national and international leadership role in family planning for the well being of our citizens and the development of the nation," Mahama said at the launch of "Life Choices", a campaign to improve the health of Ghanaian women and children by increasing access to family planning and information.

He called on individuals and couples to increase the use of contraceptives in order to have a wide spectrum of benefits especially poverty reduction, health, education, gender, and environment.

The Ghanaian vice president said urgent action must be taken to ensure that family planning provision and promotion became an integral part of the developmental effort in all sectors of the Ghanaian government and society.

The ability of women to control their own fertility was absolutely fundamental to women's empowerment and equality, he said, adding that fertility management was the most important step to full empowerment and equality and played a major factor in the ability of young women to complete their education.

Donald Teitelbaum, U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, promised that the U.S. government was committed to partnering with its Ghanaian counterpart to increase the availability and use of family planning services in the country.

The "Life Choices" campaign has been collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

The campaign was aimed at providing equal access for Ghanaians to family planning services, support individuals and couples to make responsible choices about child-bearing period and to understand how these choices affect their ability to achieve their goals.

Source: Xinhua