The regime for population and family planning officers at the grassroots level is not commensurate.

(Baonghean) - Population and family planning work plays a very important role, not only affecting economic development but also related to social issues such as employment, ensuring social welfare, security and order, human health... Therefore, this is an area that the Party, the State and the province pay special attention to and focus on leadership, direction as well as ensuring conditions to achieve the highest results in the implementation process. In our province, the Provincial Party Standing Committee issued Resolution No. 20/NQ-TU, dated June 26, 2009 on continuing to promote population and family planning work in the new situation; the Provincial People's Committee issued an Action Program to implement Resolution 20 of the Provincial Party Standing Committee. Accordingly, all levels, sectors and organizations in the province have also actively deployed and included the goals, targets and tasks of population and family planning work in the work program each year and each period to focus on leadership and direction of implementation. Today, families with one or two children are becoming more common. The average number of children per woman of childbearing age has fallen to 2.49. The population growth rate has fallen to 1.18%.

However, Nghe An is one of the 10 provinces in the country with a high birth rate, reaching 2.56 children/family. In addition, the birth rate and the third child birth rate are on the rise. Nghe An's population structure is experiencing gender imbalance at birth, with 119 boys/100 girls (in 2011) and an aging population with 11.7% of the population aged 65 and over. Population quality is posing many problems that need to be solved, such as the number of disabled people and malnourished children is still high (over 21%), the number of women of reproductive age suffering from reproductive-related diseases is high... In addition, the model of building communes and wards without third children is decreasing, from 10-13 communes and wards/year (in 2005), now only 6 communes and wards/year (in 2011).

Reality in some localities shows that, currently, although the team of cadres doing population and family planning work at the commune and hamlet levels is the core force "going to every alley, knocking on every door, checking every subject" to create positive changes in population and family planning work in the province, the regime that this team enjoys is not really commensurate with the effort put in. Specifically, the team of specialized population and family planning cadres at the commune, ward and town levels are currently receiving an allowance of 698,000 VND/person/month (for highland and lowland areas) and 648,000 VND/person/month (plain and urban areas). This level of benefit includes the allowance from the National Target Program for the highlands of 200,000 VND/person/month and the lowlands and plains of 150,000 VND/person/month and an additional allowance from the local budget of 0.6 times the current minimum wage according to Decision 58/2010/QD-UBND dated August 11, 2010 of the Provincial People's Committee. Particularly, the team of population and family planning collaborators at the hamlet level has only received an allowance of 50,000 VND/month from 2000 to present. In addition, the recruitment of the staff working on population and family planning to become commune-level health officials according to Circular No. 05/2008/TT-BYT of the Ministry of Health has not been implemented. This affects the rights of this team, because currently some qualified people are over the age limit for civil servants; Some others are not mentally secure to work, even switching to other jobs, affecting the implementation of population and family planning activities at the grassroots level. The investment of resources for population and family planning work from the province to the grassroots level is still low, only at 0.4 USD/person/year (the minimum level is 0.6 USD/person/year), so it does not really meet the requirements of population and family planning tasks set out in the new situation.

The above issues have been clearly recognized by the Committee for Culture and Society, the Provincial People's Council through the recent survey on the implementation of population and family planning policies in some localities such as Dien Chau, Quy Chau and the Provincial Population and Family Planning Department. On that basis, the Committee has also recommended that all levels and sectors continue to pay attention to research to soon have specific impacts to improve the quality and effectiveness of population and family planning work in the province in the coming time.

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