DISTRICT POPULATION WELFARE

OFFICE, NOWSHERA

SEMINARTOPIC:

The impact of population growth on the efficiency of

government departments, resource utilization, social

Introduction

Aims & Objectives

Participants

Minutes

Media Coverage

Pictorial View of the Seminar

December 27th, 2016

dpwo_nowshera@hotmail.com

REPORT OF THE SEMINAR HELD ON DECEMBER 27, 2016 AT DISTRICT POPULATION WELFARE

OFFICE NOWSHERA.

INTRODUCTIONPopulation welfare department is working in district Nowshera, for promotingthe improvement of mother and child health in particular and for reducingthe overburdening of the line departments and all stakeholders in general,through continuous and sustainable reproductive health and family planningservices.The general public is sensitized and supported in adapting to newfamily planning methods through Family Welfare Centres network, expandedthroughout the district (25 UCs), Mobile Service Unit and Reproductive HealthService Centre. Eligible couples, youth, local political leaders, teachers andreligious leaders are engaged through communication and educationprograms focusing on birth spacing and its relationship with public welfareand environmental security.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE SEMINAR• Enhancing awareness among line departments and other stakeholders

about Reproductive Health Services and Planned Birth Spacing.

• To slow the population growth rate in the district with the use ofeffective modern Contraceptives Methods, Community Mobilization,Advocacy and by acquiring the assistance of the District Administrationin funding the necessary activities.

• To highlight the importance of PWD in assisting the governmentmachinery, in planning its development projects, in the district byconducting demographic surveys.

• To highlight the role of Population Welfare Department in improving theperformance of all line departments in the district.

• To explain the effects of huge populations on social behavior norms.

• To highlight environmental degradation caused by overpopulation.

• To inform and take on board the seminar attendees on the formation ofvillage council level committees in the district and other ongoingactivities.

PARTICIPANTS AT THE SEMINAR

The event was attended by the

• Mr.Ishfaq Ahmad Khan (District Naib NazimNowshera) as the Chief Guest.

• Mr.Irfanullah Mehsud (ADC Nowshera).

• Miss Somi Falak Niaz (Chairperson Monitoring Committee for PWD Nowshera).

• Miss.Faqiha Rafique (District Officer Social Welfare, Nowshera).

• Dr. Jaleel Khan (LHW Coordinator, District Nowshera).

• Program Manager MrSohail Iqbal (FPAP).

• Mr. Muhammad Ali (Settlement Officer Nowshera).

• Dr. Mohammad Asif Khan (Professor Deptt. Of Law, University Of Malakand).

• Mr. Waseem Ahmad (Representative of PD. UOT, Nowshera).

• Mr. Ihtishamul Haq (Provincial Coordinator Nutrition Program).

• Mr. Mir Afzal Khan ( Village council Naib NazimAzakhelBala).

• Mr. Shah Saud (Member Tehsil Council Nowshera).

• Mr. Kamal Hassan ( Member Tehsil Pabbi).

• Village Councilors from different Union Councils of District Nowshera.

• Staff Of population Welfare, Nowshera.

Minutes of the Seminar• The activity started with recitation of the verses from Holy Quran by

Qari Asjid.

• Dr.GhazalaNawaz Dy.DPWO(tech) welcomed the participants at theevent and gave a brief overview of the purpose of the seminar.

• Mr. Muhammad Tariq Khan, DPWO NOWSHERA, thanked all theparticipants for sparing their valuable time and attending the seminar.The DPWO informed the participants about the services of PWD in thedistrict in detail. He emphasized on building strong partnerships,among concerned District line Departments particularly Health, SocialWelfare, Non-Governmental Organizations and the private sector, tomaintain standards in family planning and reproductive health byproviding assistance/guidance through advocacy, training, monitoringand other means of participation and quality assurance.He requestedthe district government to include Population Welfare Department inthe District ADP priority list.

• Dr. Sabeeha Moeen, I/C RHSCA NOWSHERA, briefed theattendants on reproductive health services and the services providedat RHSCA NOWSHERA.

• The event went ahead with a speech, on the importance ofinterdepartmental coordination and liaison for furthering the cause ofPopulation Welfare Department, by Deputy District PopulationWelfare Officer Mr. Amjad Ali Khan.

• A complete picture of the current situation regarding the impact ofpopulation growth was explained by the Dy.Demographer Mr.UmarFarooq. He also stressed at the need for funding by the districtadministration for conducting demographic surveys.

• Miss. Faqiha Rafique, D.O Social Welfare Department Nowshera, thanked the DPWO PWD for inviting her to the event and she alsospoke on the need for stronger coordination among the linedepartments. She gave a brief detail about her department’s servicesbeing provided in the district and offered the services of her office infurthering the cause of PWD through increasing liaison of the serviceproviding facilities of both departments at union council level.

• The FPAP Program Manager, Mr.Sohail Iqbal also spoke at theevent and praised the views shared by the demographer on theimpacts of population growth. He also suggested that to Increaseownership of population issues by the stakeholders (i.e. Community,Local Political Leaders, Line depts., NGOs and Religious Leaders), theymust strengthen their participation in the processes of service deliveryand Community Motivation.

• Miss Somi Falak Niaz, Chairperson Monitoring Committee forPWD Nowshera, also shed light on her experience with thedepartment and showed her satisfaction over the working of PWD staffNowshera in the field.She also said that our religion has bestowedgreat respect and high status upon mothers. It is important to

understand that lack of birth spacing is harmful for both the motherand child, therefore, we must take measures to minimize this harm andprotect lives. She endorsed the demand of the DPWO for financialsupport, from the District government, intended for awareness andcommunity mobilization activities.

• The Chief Guest, Naib Nazim District Nowshera, Mr. IshfaqAhmad Khan said that Pakistan has become the most populouscountry in the world. There are many other problems like corruption,use of hush money and the bad sense of rich and poor, all have itsroots in over population. At the moment overpopulation is a greatdanger for economic development as it swallows up the progress madeby the economic sector. With the increase in population, there is ahuge pressure on resources in the country which badly effects theeconomy of the country.He also said that children have rights over theirparents who are responsible for bringing them into this world. Parents areresponsible for taking good care of their children to provide them all basicfacilities. In our country parents are not aware of the rights of their children overthem. It is important to provide guidance to parents so they can understand theirresponsibility better and plan their families accordingly. A mother cannot attendto more than one child at a time. A new born needs constant attention of themother for at least two years if a woman produces the second child without givinga gap of minimum two years the first born suffers due to the second pregnancyand that in a way is unfair to him/her. At the end he congratulated District Officeof Population Welfare Department for conducting this seminar andacknowledged the services being provided by the PWD in the district and assuredfull support from District Government in funding the activities of PopulationWelfare Department Nowshera.

• In the end certificates were distributed among the best employees ofPWD.

• The event concluded with firm dedication towards slowing thepopulation growth in the district.

PICTORAL VEIW OF THE SEMINAR

DAWN Measures to control population stressed

NOWSHERA: Speakers at a seminar here on Tuesday complained about the growing population rate and demanded of the government to take corrective measures without delay.

The event was titled ‘the impact of population growth on the efficiency of government departments, resource utilisation, social behaviours and norms, and climate change.’

Noted among participants were district naib nazim Mohammad Ishfaq, district population welfare officer Tariq Khan, ADC Irfanullah, LHW programme district coordinator Dr Jalil, FPAPprogramme manager Suhail Iqbal, DDO Amjad Ali Khan and DO (social welfare) Faqiha Rafiq.

The speakers said the situation on population front was alarming in the country and therefore, emergency steps were needed to address it. They said they were concerned that the population rate was fast increasing.

The speakers said the high population rate was taking its toll on institutions, resources, social norms and climate.

They said better public health led to a sharp drop in mortality rate over the years and thus accelerating population growth but upsettingly, the fertility rate remained very high, much human potential remained unutilised, and economic development was stalled.

The speakers said ‘agricultural intensification’ could help restore a balance between food production and population rate.

They complained early and forced marriages persisted in society despite the country’s universal commitments to eliminating them.

The speakers demanded that the government abandon the false division between productive or economic expenditure and social expenditure.

They also said the spending on population welfare activities should be increased for contributing to sustainable development.

District naib nazim Ashfaq Ahmad said his government would provide all possible support and cooperation to the population welfare department for the successful execution of its projects, including those about public awareness.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2016

THE IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON THE EFFICIENCY OF GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, RESOURCE UTILIZATION, SOCIAL BEHAVIOR NORMS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

What are the Department's goals?

The goal of PWD is to promote healthy populations by supporting sexual andreproductive health and reproductive rights, voluntary family planning. Thedepartment does not endorse population "control." The "ideal" family size shouldbe determined by the desires of couples, not governments. The department stronglyopposes coercive population programs.

What is the policy? Couples and individuals have the right to decide freely andresponsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and the right to havethe information, education, and means to do so.

Enabling women to determine whether, when, and how often to have children iscrucial to safe motherhood and healthy families. Increasing access to reproductivehealth services, including voluntary family planning, has profound health,economic, and social benefits. It reduces maternal and child death and disability,reduces recourse to abortion, and empowers women by creating opportunities foreducation, employment and full participation in society.

THE AIM: PWD aims to slow the population growth rate of the district througheffective motivation and counseling to couples and provide necessary assistance.

PGR OF NOWSHERA

Presently the population growth rate in nowshera is estimated at 3.7% which isalarming in the sense that through out the world in general and in pakistan inparticular the growth rate is on decline but the growth rate of nowshera has risenfrom that of in 1998.

Presentation on the current situation by the Deputy Demographer

The purpose of the seminar today is not for the sake of a seminar, its an emergency

call, emergency call just like when a country is faced with a grave situation and the

meeting of core committee is being called to cope with the situation. It is an

emergency because we have left it unnoticed for too long, and now it has been

hitting us at the heart of our service management system. We are becoming unable

to cope with rising demands of the public or infact the inability to provide for what

a government is supposed to provide. It is grave because the nature this time is not

on our side. We are faced with serious climate change effects. The best examples

are, look at Peshawar its about at twenty minute drive or was at twenty minute

drive now the congestion and over population has rendered it almost unreachable

on time, this twenty minute distanced city has a different temperature from

Nowshera. WHY? PESHAWAR HAS TURNED INTO A CONCRETE ASPHALT

SETTLEMENT, THESE MATERIALS DO NOT ABSORB HEAT FROM THE SUN

RAYS, INFACT THEY TURN IT BACK TO THE ATMOSPHERE, AND PESHAWAR IS

WARMER THAN HER SURROUNDING CITIES. Now here in nowshera the situation

is like following on the footsteps of the sister city. The impact of population

growth on institutions, resources, social norms and climate is taking its toll. Rain is

delayed. But we are not taking notice of such huge climate changes for being aloof

to the core issue. CO2 emissions have grown at an annual rate of 3.5% since 1900,

and it is now 25% more than Earth’s “bio-capacity”. The equation is not rocket

science. Two billion people, all else being equal, put more greenhouse gases into

the atmosphere than one billion people. Judging from media reports and the

statements of politicians, environmental problems, to the degree they are

recognized, can be solved by minor changes in technologies and recycling (T).

Switching to ultra-light, fuel-efficient cars will obviously give some short-term

advantage, but as population and consumption grow, they will pour still more

carbon dioxide (and vaporized rubber) into the atmosphere and require more

natural areas to be buried under concrete. More recycling will help, but many of

our society’s potentially most dangerous effluents (such as hormone-mimicking

chemicals) cannot practically be recycled. There is no technological change we can

make that will permit growth in either human numbers or material affluence to

continue to expand.in short more cars, more black carpet roads, resulting in

generating more heat repellents. In the face of this, the neglect of the intertwined

issues of population and consumption is stunning.

Farmers didn’t settle first on poor soils where water was scarce, but rather in rich

river valleys. That’s where most cities developed, where rich soils are now being

paved over for roads and suburbs, and where water supplies are being polluted or

overexploited.

As a result, to support additional people it is necessary to move to ever poorer

lands, drill wells deeper, or tap increasingly remote sources to obtain water — and

then spend more energy to transport that water ever greater distances to farm fields,

homes, and factories.

Present rates of population growth cannot continue. They already compromise

many governments' abilities to provide education, health care, and food security for

people, much less their abilities to raise living standards. This gap between

numbers and resources is all the more compelling because so much of the

population growth is concentrated in low-income areas.

Improvements in medicine and public health have led to a sharp drop in mortalityrates and have accelerated population growth rates to unprecedented levels. Butfertility rates remain high; much human potential remains unrealized, andeconomic development is stalled. Agricultural intensification can go some waytowards restoring a balance between food production and population, but there arelimits beyond which intensification cannot go. A shift from organic to inorganicfood is not by choice but by compulsion. Quality has been compromised for thesake of quantity. Humans have disturbed the nature, resulting in increasing apressure on organic yield.

Social patterns such as the nuclearization of families, increased divorce, and longerlife spans are likely to encourage formation of a greater number of households.Previously when the Populations were small, there were strong bonds with infamilies. Parents and grand parents would brought up the children in a welldisciplined environment. Respect and moral values were considered important. Butwith rapid increase in back to back growing numbers of children and disregard for

birth spacing made it impossible to continue such patterns in the present times. Themonetary factor came along with the expansion in a joint household andnuclearization started. For of all other necessities feeding issue was consideredimportant and earnings factor was emphasized.

Spacing in birth is not just meant for mother child health, it is also important in thesense that a mother has enough time and space which is needed for creating acloser bond with her child and also bringing up her child as a morally sound andresponsible Individual. Moreover, Gender roles that define women’s status by thenumber of children they have, limit women’s access to alternative roles, giveothers control over women’s decisions to have children, and devalue femalechildren (creating greater demand for more children in order to ensure having malechildren) have been implicated as causes of population growth in India (Bhan,2001; Sen, 2003).At the family level, the capacity to plan the timing of childbirths can dramaticallyaffect household well-being through improved maternal and child health, and moreproductive use of time, human energy and income. Research conducted in manydeveloping countries demonstrates that children in large families tend to be lesswell-nourished over the long term, which can undermine school performance and,hence, future earnings potential. In general, economists conclude that parents withfewer offspring are able to invest more in each child than those with largerfamilies. Studies show that, on average, children from smaller families attainhigher levels of schooling. For girls, the cultural background of parents is likely toaffect the percentage of school enrollments. High proportions of school-agechildren, due to rapid population growth, undoubtedly put pressure on existingschool and health care facilities. Lowering fertility would also help families sparethe time and money for more adequate health care, nutrition and education for theirchildren, while making it easier for governments to increase spending for eachchild in both health and education. Fertility decline help reduces incomedisparities between social classes.

It is interesting to note that perceived links between one’s own behavior andspecific environmental problems can encourage contraceptive use. For example, ina rural agricultural setting in Nepal, those who perceived that environmentaldestruction had influenced their agricul-tural productivity were more likely to usecontraceptives.(Ghimire & Mohai, 2005).

There are several factors that are linked to fertility rates, such as technological

advancement and increased levels of education. In developing countries children

are often seen as an economic asset, a tool to help increase agricultural production

and also to ensure that a caregiver exists when parents get older. “Demand or need

for large numbers of children is driven down by improvements in living standards

and child survival and by the moderni2ation of economies.” The movement away

from agricultural production and into more modern industries in the manufacturing

and services sectors negates the necessity to have large numbers of children.

The practices of early and forced marriage persist, despite near-universalcommitment to eliminate them. One out of every three girls in developingcountries will be married before reaching 18 and more than 15 million girls willgive birth each year, robbing them of a chance to finish school and pursue theirdreams. Higher education levels for women also lead to the delay of marriage,which would then, presumably, lead to a decrease in fertility as well. Education ismeant to be more than just enrolment levels in primary, secondary, and highereducational institutions. Education also refers to family planning resources whichhas a direct and obvious effect on fertility rates. Population growth can be curbedby strategic investments by the state in family planning services and education. Infact, some economists have argued that it is one of the most significant investmentsfor a developing country. A study shows the comparison on the return fromtraditional development spending to the return from spending on family planningthat was 100 to 500 times more effective than spending on other developmentprojects. Lowering fertility rates is not the only benefit of educating womenobviously. More education means a more productive labourer which has a directeffect on economic growth.

Economists acknowledge that population growth has impaired the productivity ofrenewable natural resources and their provision of environmental services.Renewable resources are those such as fresh water from rainfall, soil, and fisheriesthat can be harvested and used up to certain thresholds without impairing theirlong-term viability. Environmental services may include the pollination of crops bybees and other animals, pest control provided by species rich ecosystems, mineralnutrient absorption and cycling in healthy soils, water catchment and filtration, andflood prevention. Forces associated with population growth are most threatening to

the environmental products and services that renewable natural resources providewhen property rights are hard to assign or maintain. Fisheries, forest products,rangelands, freshwater resources, the atmosphere and genetic diversity are eachrenewable natural resources sensitive to human-induced pressures.

The impacts of current human population growth is not just about people, butabout government departments and their capacities to deal with rapid social andecological change. Departments mediate relationships between people. Theyconvey signals, channeling human activity by facilitating or rewarding somebehaviors while obstructing or punishing others. Systems of formal education,transportation and communications networks, public health systems, andinternational trade, all are the tasks of govt institutions. When modern macro-levelinstitutions function well, they can impart flexibility to an economy and transmitwidespread benefits. How each nation fares as it undergoes the changes andstresses brought about by population growth depends, atleast in part, upon thenature of coordination among the departments. Social scientists, however, havelong been engaged in research to spot how institutions work and for whom theywork best. Their conclusions have implications for the ways in which key aspectsof population growth—family size, increments of young people, human densityand contributions to aggregate demand for goods and services—affect the way inwhich governments manage productive assets and allocate the goods and servicesderived from them.

Recently, several major studies have concluded that the degradation of naturalresources is frequently an active component of economic feedback cyclesperpetuated by population growth and poorly developed institutions. Wheremodern institutions have been too weak to manage resource allocation, scarcitiesinduced by population growth and inequitable distribution have led to localdisputes and sometimes violent conflict. it is often financially and politicallydifficult for governments to invest in human assets at the levels needed to buildworkable institutions and healthy, literate labor forces. First, institutionallimitations often grow more serious under conditions of high population density.And second, the assets most neglected in institutional transactions, or moredamaged by their spillover costs, tend to be those that are inadequately understood,ineffectively conveyed or poorly represented by the institution itself. A localexample is I have seen the streets carpeting in villages with concrete floors, that isa waste of money in the sense that when another department wants to lay down acommunication line or a pipe for some purpose this concrete is to be broken downagain, to avoid such wastage of money the other countries around the world usetiles in pavement of streets. But this all requires the strong coordination among the

various departments with demographers having a major role, demographers are thewhat and where of the society, they measure, analyse and give plans. This savesmoney and creates efficiency. The population growth has so much confused all thedepartments that very often spending is done just to spend. The importance ofPWD is to be realized in demographic context. Demographers should be funded forthe surveys needed to increase the efficiency.

A first step may be for governments to abandon the false division between 'productive' or 'economic' expenditures and 'social' expenditures. Policymakers must realize that spending on population activities and on other efforts to raise human potential is crucial to a nation's economic and productive activities and to achieving sustainable human progress - the end for which a government exists.

Indicators

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Total Population (million)

25

Growth Rate (%) per annum

2.05

Contraceptive Prevalence Rate(%)

28.1 (PDHS 2012-13)

Total Fertility Rate

3.9 (PDHS 2012-13)

Children per women in reproductive live ageing 15 to 49

Infant Mortality Rate per 1000

58 (PDHS 2012-13)

Maternal Mortality Rate per 100000

274

Family Planning Awareness %

92

- See more at: http://population_welfare.kp.gov.pk/page/demographic_indicators_1#sthash.KcU8gfku.dpuf