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Stakeholders in population issues are meeting in Blantyre until Wednesday to chart the way forward for an advocacy strategy to support the implementation of the new national population policy.
Acting director of the Department of Population Services Grace Hiwa said in an interview Tuesday that a review of the previous strategy exposed emerging issues in population such as HIV/Aids, gender and adolescent reproductive health which require urgent attention.
“These are some of the pertinent issues we need to improve on and during this two-day meeting we will discuss how the advocacy strategy can be implemented to make a difference,” she said.
Hiwa said at the end of the project in 2006, the department and its stakeholders hope to make a difference by, among other things, contributing to the lowering of the maternal mortality rate which has risen from 620 to 1,120 deaths per 100,000 births.
She said research findings have revealed that among the contributing factors to the rising maternal mortality rate are girl dropouts in schools hence the inclusion in the programme of educationists from the Malawi Institute of Education to help with solutions.
Hiwa also said the population advocacy programme, funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in five-year programme phases, also targets to involve men in reproductive health and mobilise resources for advocacy.
The stakeholders are expected to identify and allocate roles to each other in the implementation of the strategy, develop a dissemination plan for the advocacy strategy, among other issues.
Participants have been drawn from Ministry of Health, UNFPA, Chancellor College, Malawi Institute of Education, Censorship Board, media and reproductive health NGOs.
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