DSW World Population Day celebrations on 11th July 2017

The government of Uganda through the National Population Council (NPC) in partnership with development partners and Civil Society organizations commemorated World Population in Busia district. Busia district was selected because of its high teenage pregnancy rate standing at 28% as higher than the already worrying 25% national teenage pregnancy rate. This is mainly attributed to high girl child school dropout rate of 30% among other factors.

The national theme for World population Day in Uganda was“Strengthen Youth Competitiveness for Sustainable Development” which is in tandem with DSW mandate of empowering young people.

DSW was selected to represent other CSOs on the organizing committee of World Population Day and participated in all the planning meetings both at national and district level. Busia district is one of the longest district where DSW has supported various youth projects, it was therefore appropriate and timely for DSW to actively participate and leverage on this opportunity for visibility. We visibly took the show of the day!

HE the President of Uganda Yoweri. K. Museveni officiated the function as the chief guest. In his speech he called upon the actors to support government progammes to foster economic development in order to harness the demographic dividend. He commended development partners and civil society organizations for supporting and complimenting the government to efforts to address SRHR and population issues. He retaliated that this has led to the reduction of maternal mortality rate to 336 per 10,000 mothers. Fertility rate to 5.4% but decried the high teenage pregnancy rate that have stagnated at 25% for the last 10 years, with Busia being slightly higher than the national rate by 3%. He reechoed the plea by UNFPA Country Representative to launch a campaign named”Books before Babies” to end teenage pregnancy and he committed to work with all partners and civil society organizations to address this challenge. He also committed to support strategies that will enhance male (boys and men) involvement as a critical strategy to address SRHR challenges.

The President of the Rep. of Uganda Yoweri K Museveni inspects the DSW exhibition stall during the WPDon 11^th 2017 in Busia

Prior to the president’s speech, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Alain Sibenarler reminded His Excellency the president of the republic of Uganda of his commitments to the FP 2020 London summit that he made in 2012. He quoted him “quality population is critical to development” and I commit to increase FP budget from 3m USD to 5m USD’.  He once again called upon him to honor his commitments. He further requested the government to launch a campaign of let girls be girls to curb the escalating issues of child marriages, school dropouts, death due to unprepared bodies of the young people.

President Museveni called upon stakeholders to join in the  campaign of  let girls be girls  which he code named ‘books before babies’ in Ugandan context aimed at reducing teenage pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS infections among the young people. ‘We have embarked on the campaign to address the escalating population challenges under theme books before babies; we therefore urge all the actors’ non state and state to embrace this campaign’ He remarked. He added that Uganda’s Vision to become a middle income country will not be achieved if efforts are not made to exploit the youthful population.

The Netherlands Ambassador Henk Bakker said that the high population will be a disaster if not checked. “If the current growing population is not checked, Uganda will be suffering with a big number of its population uneducated and majority not accessing health services”. He cautioned.

Young people getting information on SRHR during the pre-World population Day community outreaches

Pre-World Population Day Dialogue.

On the eve of the Population day, a population dialogue was organized by DSW and NPC in Busia district targeting decision/policy makers from 10 districts of Busoga, Bukedea and Elgon region. These   included local council members, district technical staff, religious leaders and members of parliament from the region. Other participants included civil society organizations representatives and UNFPA staff. In recognition of DSW`s contribution to SRHR information and services for young people, DSW was the only civil society organization that was given a slot on the agenda/program to present on two topics i.e. youth participation in decision making to harness sustainable development and Faith+Family planning milestones and opportunities.

 The youth were led by Obwana Ignatius one of the DSW champions who shared his testimony on his experience aspirations in decision making. I quote

 “I live a productive life, and have advanced my political career., I serve as the Speaker of Buteba sub county Busia district, and as the sub county Youth chair person, as well as sub county youth counselor, member of Amonikakino PS management committee, I have been empowered to participate in competitive elections at community and district levels.  Amazingly I dropped out of school in O’level due to school fees constraints. like many youths present here today, I attribute my success to DSW approach of empowering and supporting young people with leadership, management, and life skills. we have continuously attained this through our youth clubs’ structures. I am a family planning champion, married and together with my wife, we have 2 children and we are committed to using family planning to ensure that we provide the best quality health care and education to our children’’

Ministry of Gender and Social Development committed to work with DSW and their youth groups to ensure that they benefit from the youth livelihood fund.

Friends of Christ Revival Ministries an FBO that benefited from Faith 2 Action Network financial and technical support through the Population Action International Faith + Family planning initiative shared their milestones and strategies of working with Faith Organisations and religious leaders to address SRHR challenges. Milestones include; development of FP district costed implementation plan for Namayingo district, commitment by religious leaders to support Family planning and influencing the district to allocate funds for FP. Following this presentation a resolution on involvement of Faith organisations and religious leaders was adopted and F2A/DSW was applauded for this great initiative.