Formulate strategy to cap population growth
Speakers at a discussion yesterday urged the government to take necessary steps to formulate an effective population management strategy, as uncontrolled population growth is the key obstacle to development in the country.
They laid emphasis on empowering women by involving them in all sectors of development, because the concept of women empowerment is closely related with birth control strategies.
They made the remarks while addressing the discussion on 'Empowering women in reinforces development' jointly organised by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Department of Population Science of Dhaka University (DU) at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban on the campus.
The discussion was organised to observe the World Population Day-2009 with the slogan of 'Responding to the economic crisis: Investing in women is a smart choice'.
Addressing the discussion DU Vice Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique said, “All the people in the country are asset. They will remain burden of the society, if the country failed to make them skilled. We want to seen them asset rather burden. The government should take initiative to convert the vast population into resource. That is why it is must to adopt combined population control strategy.”
Arthur Erken, UNFPA representative in Bangladesh, at the discussion expressed great concern over the women's death during pregnancy and childbirth in the least developed countries.
“The whole world losses $15 billion for the death of women in pregnancy and childbirth, while it would cost $6 billion to provide the health services needed to save women lives,” he said.
He called on the policymakers of the country to make the health and rights of women a political and development priority. “Investing in women and girls will set the stage not only for economic recovery but also for tong-term economic growth that reduce inequity and poverty,” he added.
Md Mehedi Hasan Khan, chairman of the department, chaired the programme while Pro-VC Harun-or-Rashid, Dean of Social Science Faculty Prof Sheikh Abdus Salam, population science expert Prof Dr AKM Nurun Nabi, among others, spoke.
Teachers, students and officials of the population science department also brought out a procession on the campus marking the day.
After the discussion awards were given among the winners of debate and essay writing competition organised on the occasion.
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