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Ghana Family Planning
A survey carried out between 1962 and 1964 in rural areas of
the country and among the economically better-off urban population
indicated the nature of the problem with population control in
Ghana. The survey showed that rural families favored a total of
seven or eight children and that the actual number of children in
the better-off urban family ran between five and six. In neither
case was there much interest in limiting the size of the family,
although the urban group stated that it would recommend a maximum
of three or four children to newly married couples.
The Ghanaian government has long shown an active interest in
the population question. It was a cosponsor of a resolution on
population growth and economic development in the 1962-63 session
of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and was the first subSaharan country to sign the "World Leaders' Declaration on
Population" in 1967 that called attention to the population
question. In 1969 it issued a general policy paper, "Population
Planning for National Progress and Prosperity," that included
provisions for family planning services. Subsequently, in 1969, it
carried out a mass publicity and education campaign on family
planning and during late 1970 sponsored an awareness week designed
to encourage acceptance of family planning.
Some family planning services have been available since 1966,
when the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana was formed. In the
early 1990s, branch offices of the organization were still
functioning in regional capitals out of which field officers
(usually women) organized community awareness campaigns. In
addition to the obvious family planning activities, the Planned
Parenthood Association and the United States government furnished
technical and financial support to the government's effort to
control population expansion. This support included aid for the
demographic unit of the Sociology Department of the University of
Ghana in the collection of data on attitudes toward population
control and on family planning practices during the 1970s. The aid
program also funded pilot projects that incorporated family
planning education into basic health services and that provided
training of medical and paramedical personnel.
Although many adult Ghanaians have at least some knowledge of
family planning, data from the 1980s suggest almost no change in
attitudes and practices from the 1960s. For example, most Ghanaian
women still prefer large families and probably see their childbearing abilities as a form of social and economic security
(see The Position of Women
, this ch.). In Africa, where the infant
mortality rate is generally high, large families ensure that some
children will survive. It is, therefore, not surprising that
Ghana's population continues to grow rapidly in the 1990s.
In an effort to regulate the effects of rapid population
growth, the government launched a substantial public education
program for women in the late 1980s that continued into the 1990s.
In numerous newspaper articles and at community health centers, the
campaign stressed child nutrition and immunization and the spacing
of births. Although family planning had been incorporated into
basic women's health services, no attention was given to the role
of men in family planning until the beginning of the 1990s when a
campaign to control the spread of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDs) addressed male promiscuity and the practice of
polygamy
(see
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
, this ch.).
Because of government efforts and increased aid from the United
States, some increase in the use of contraceptives and modern
methods of birth control has occurred during the early 1990s. As is
to be expected, family planning is more likely to be practiced
among women who live in urban areas with greater access to family
planning services and whose level of education is junior secondary
school or above.
Data as of November 1994
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