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Population council focuses on women

    ABIDJAN

    The National Population Council in Ghana says women's empowerment, the education of girls and unsafe abortion will be at the heart of its programme for the next millenium, PANA reported on Thursday.

    The council's executive secretary, Richard Turkson, told a news conference in Accra that these could be achieved through strengthening links with government ministries, departments and agencies and non-governmental organisations to intensify public education, PANA reported.

    Turkson said that as a result of such partnerships already in place, a number of policy guidelines for population control had already been produced. They include the medium-term health strategy, national reproductive policy, draft national adolescent reproductive health and national communication strategy.

    He added there had been a sharp decline in fertility rates from 6.5 children per woman in 1960 to 4.5 in 1998, while the use of modern contraceptives had improved from 5 percent in 1981 to 13 percent in 1999, PANA reported.

    The 23-member council was established in 1992 as an institutional
    framework to translate the national population goals, objectives and strategies into programmes, PANA said.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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