In order to complete targets and criteria in population, the Population-Family Planning Sub-Department of Hoa Binh has strengthened communications to enhance public awareness and change community’s behaviours on population and development in the new situation.
A
parade in Hoa Binh city to popularise the campaign to increase people’s access
to family planning services.
Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, Director of the provincial Population-Family Planning
Sub-Department, said that the agency has worked to intensivelyy and extensively
popularise population and development issues to all sectors, agencies,
associations, and socio-political organisations as well as the community,
families and clans, especially couples of childbearing age.
Communications contents have been made practical with many forms, including
mass media communications, group consultation, 1-1 consultation, and
conferences, she said.
The official underlined that the contents focus on popularising policies, law
regarding population and development as well as directions of the provincial
Party Committee and People’s Committee in the work, along with gender equality,
pre-marital health, adolescent and young adult reproductive health care, and
the harms of child marriage.
The communications work has been performed by population officials at all
levels in coordination with local organisations and localities, she said,
adding that many effective models have been formed, including that of Thalassemia
testing at local healthcare stations.
Particularly, the sub-department has concentrated on popularising a directive
from the Chairperson of the provincial People’s Committee on designing measures
to associate the contents that each couple should have two children into the
regulations and conventions of the residential area as well as the internal
rules and regulations of agencies and organisations in Hoa Binh province in the
2021 - 2025 period.
The efforts aim to create obvious changes in the field, enhancing the
enforcement and efficiency in implementing policies and laws regarding
population in agencies, units and localities across the province, thus reducing
the rate of giving birth to three children and above.
Phuong said that after five years of implementing the action plan on population
in the new situation, positive results have been recorded in the population and
family planning, with the natural population growth rate kept stable at about
1%, the average number of children of a woman of reproductive age standing at
2.06, and the rate of couples using modern contraceptive methods reaching over
75%. The living conditions of locals have been improved, with the average life
expectancy of local residents reaching 73 years old.
In the coming time, the sub-department will continue to work harder to
strengthen directions on population-development communications, while
coordinating closely with departments, sectors and agencies at all levels to
renovate the contents and methods of communications to suit particular groups,
stated Phuong.
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