Experts urge funding, reforms on population
Population experts have said increased financing and strong institutions to promote the coordination and implementation of national population and development policies are key to achieving targets.
The experts made the call during a panel discussion held on the sidelines of the African Population Conference (APC) at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe which featured panellists from Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria, among others.
Speaking in an interview, African Institute for Development Policy (Afidep) executive director Eliya Zulu called on the government to create a semi-autonomous unit to oversee the coordination of population policies across local ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
The Afidep head said Malawi can mirror the model used by Nigeria, which has a National Population Council that reports directly to the president, to create a more efficient framework.
He said: “Our model in Malawi is where the coordination is being done by a unit within the EP and D [Economic Planning and Development]. So, it is not a very, very strong institutional mechanism. The idea here is really to say, how do countries learn from each other?”
On his part, Nigeria’s National Population Council chairperson Nasir Isa Kwarra said placing the Executive at the centre of population and development issues ensures stronger political will.
“So, I think if we can adopt that strategy and remove it from the ministry and put it at the President and the Executive structure, you can ensure ownership and more focused action,” he said.
The discussion comes at a time of concerns that inadequate funding and ineffective coordination mechanisms are undermining the implementation and coordination of the revised National Population Policy launched last year, which prioritises harnessing the demographic dividend as a pathway for achieving the targets in the Malawi 2063 Vision (MW2063).
Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs Principal Secretary for public sector investment programmes Patrick Zimpita said government would need stronger financing to implement the policy.
He said: “We need to increase our financing to developing skills, particularly in data collection and management, to improve our policy interventions to pressing social issues. If we need to implement good policies that are responsive to population issues, we need quality, reliable and accurate data.”
The revised National Population Policy focuses on harnessing the demographic dividend and youth needs, among others, as a pathway to achieving the MW2063 vision by taking a whole-of-society and cross-sectoral approach to addressing population growth.
The emphasis on improved data collection and management follows a recommendation made at the 2019 APC held in Uganda. The Entebbe Declaration called on governments to strengthen data collection institutions and invest in research for use as evidence in informing development priorities.
