Less kids, more resources, says minister

from the Independent On Line

By Barry Bateman

Government's ability to respond to women's rights issues and the prevention of HIV and Aids are hampered by the critical shortage of skilled health professionals.

Deputy Minister of Social Development Dr Jean Swanson-Jacobs told guests on World Population Day on Friday that measures were being taken to combat the problem.

She said this year's World Population Day coincided with an interesting milestone.

"For the first time in history, more than half of the world's populations, 3,3-billion people, are living in urban areas," she said.

Swanson-Jacobs said that the South African Population Policy, adopted in 1998, recognised that population and development are intertwined and cannot be dealt with by a single entity.

"Education is a key factor in sustainable development and having fewer, healthier children can reduce the economic burden on poor families. It can allow parents to invest more in each child's care and schooling, helping them to break the cycle of poverty.

"Education is a means to enable the individual to gain access to knowledge, improve the quality of life and promote genuine democracy," Swanson-Jacobs said.

She said the most significant social consequences of teenage pregnancy were vulnerability to or participation in criminal activity, abortion, child neglect and abandonment, poverty, further pregnancies and interrupted or abandoned education.

"As long as South African women do not enjoy freedom to control their own bodies within supportive relationships with husbands or partners, population problems relating to fertility will remain a major national concern," she said.

United Nations Population Fund's Professor Oladele Arowolo urged the authorities to accelerate efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eliminate extreme poverty.

Arowolo said South Africans must join forces to advance the empowerment of women and to ensure universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

"Urgent action is needed because the goal to improve maternal health is generating the least resources and lagging the furthest behind," he said.

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