Family Planning Increases

The birth rates are still high in Africa are still high but increasing numbers of women are taking advantage of family planning services. According to the latest Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) report, the number has increased by 66% since 2012 — from 40 million to more than 66 million women and girls. In Central and West Africa, the number of female users has doubled, according to FP2020. In eastern and southern Africa, it has increased by as much as 70%. Health care is more in the hands of women, so they don't always have to return to clinics.

 According to UN estimates, the number of people in the continent is expected to double by 2050 — making it increasingly difficult to provide jobs for future generations. UN agencies set an ambitious goal: to get 120 million more people in the world's 69 lowest-income countries to use modern contraceptives by 2020.

A few years ago, Malawi had one of the highest rates of child marriages globally. In 2018, the government put an end to this by raising the minimum age of marriage to 18. Rwanda boasts an innovative idea where condoms and contraceptives are delivered to villages by moped having been ordered by text message — just as in Kenya. 20,000 people are already using a similar service. In Ethiopia, the availability of contraception for young people has grown. The government has trained 40,000 female health workers to work in health clinics in rural areas. In Niger, radio commercials draw attention to the importance of contraception.  In Burkina Faso. She said the government had increased spending by 30% and attracted more donations to reduce pregnancies. Young people are to be integrated into family planning counseling sessions early, and contraceptives are to be distributed freely.

"The desire to have children is changing in most countries with good access to family planning," Catherina Hinz, executive director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, told DW. Her Africa's Demographic Leaders study confirmed this trend, Hinz said. "The more educated the girls are," she added, "the smaller the families." 

It is vital that people no longer have to rely on children to provide for them in old age. 

African women embrace contraceptives as populations grow | Africa | DW | 13.02.2021