Nghe An is one of the 10 provinces with the highest birth rate in the country.

Resolution No. 170/2015/NQ-HDND dated July 10, 2015 of the Provincial People's Council regulating a number of population policies - family planning in Nghe An province took effect from 2015 and has had a positive impact on the population work of the province. However, after 5 years of implementation, a number of policies also need to be adjusted to suit new requirements and tasks.

"Support" for population work

Compared to many other localities, Nghi Loc district's population work faces many difficulties with its own characteristics, especially nearly 50% of the population in special areas and coastal areas. However, in the past 5 years, the implementation of population and family planning targets has had positive results.

Leaders of the Department of Population and Family Planning and the People's Committee of Vinh City presented gifts to families implementing the population policy. Photo: My Ha

Specifically, if in 2015, the birth rate in the whole district was 20.4%o, by 2019 it had decreased to 16.8%o; The birth rate of the third child or more decreased from 23.8% in 2015 to 23.4% in 2019; The annual population growth rate was stable at 1-1.2%; the rate of couples accepting modern contraceptive methods increased from 56.1% in 2015 to 57.8% in 2019; The gender gap at birth decreased from 123 males/100 females in 2015 to 109 males/100 females in 2019; The rate of people living in coastal areas with access to reproductive health care/family planning services increased from 72.3% in 2015 to 90% in 2019; The number of hamlets without people giving birth to a third child increased gradually over the years...

To achieve these results, in recent years Nghi Loc is one of the districts that has done well in population policies, especially in investment to improve the effectiveness of programs. Accordingly, every year, local Party committees, authorities, departments, branches, unions, political and social organizations in the area have seriously deployed and implemented Resolution 170/2015/NQ - People's Council.

People of Yen Thanh district march to promote population policy. Photo: My Ha.

Mr. Vo Thanh Hai - Director of the Center - Population/Family Planning of Nghi Loc district said: "Resolution No. 17 on population policy is an important basis for us to implement programs and advise and propose solutions for the population work of the district. The target of Population - Family Planning is identified as one of the important targets in socio-economic development and is linked to programs of hunger eradication, poverty reduction, building cultural blocks, hamlets, villages, and new rural construction programs".

In particular, despite limited budget conditions, every year the district and 100% of communes in the area allocate funds to invest in population work with a total amount of more than 2 billion VND. In particular, some localities invest at a relatively high level compared to other units such as Phuc Tho (175 million VND), Nghi Long (106 million VND), Nghi My (91 million VND), Nghi Tien (78 million VND), Nghi Phong (77 million VND), Nghi Cong Nam (71 million VND)... Every year, the district has a policy of rewarding villages and hamlets that implement population policies well and criticizing, reprimanding or removing emulation titles from violating units.

A propaganda session on reproductive health for students in Quy Hop district. Photo: PV

Yen Thanh district is the first locality to have a policy of financial support for the construction of models to stabilize the birth rate, reduce the population growth rate, reduce the birth rate of the third child or more and improve the quality of the population with a support level of 160 million VND/year. In addition, the district also has a support policy for blocks and hamlets with no one giving birth to the third child or more with a support level of at least 2 million VND/year (for blocks and hamlets that have done well in population policy for 2 consecutive years).

The support level will also increase each year and from the 6th year onwards, for each consecutive year that the hamlet has no one giving birth to a third child or more, the support will increase by 1 million VND compared to the previous year. For communes that have no one giving birth to a third child or more, the District People's Committee will award a Certificate of Merit and support of 20,000,000 VND per year (equal to the support level of the Provincial People's Committee).

"Thanks to population policies, in recent times we have built 11 models for birth reduction work. In addition, the expansion of funding sources according to the support mechanisms and policies of the district, commune and town has created favorable conditions for people of childbearing age to have more access to information and reproductive health care/family planning services, creating consensus among the masses and people."

Mr. Phan Quoc Tuan - Director of the Center for Population and Family Planning of Yen Thanh district.

New and appropriate policies are needed.

In the whole province, the implementation of population policy according to Resolution No. 170/2015/NQ-HDND dated July 10, 2015 of the Provincial People's Council and other policies associated with localities have contributed significantly to promoting and encouraging the province's population work team and bringing positive changes to population work. However, the new policy also needs adjustments to suit the new situation, especially when the population sector is shifting its focus from Population - Family Planning to Population and Development and Nghe An still has many challenges and difficulties when Nghe An is still one of the 10 provinces with the highest birth rate in the country and has not reached replacement birth rates.

Talking about the shortcomings in the implementation of current population policies, recently the Department of Population - Family Planning also organized a meeting to collect opinions to adjust Resolution No. 170 and many opinions frankly said that many policies are not reasonable and increasingly difficult to implement. Meanwhile, the incentive policies that the province has put forward are not enough to motivate and encourage the grassroots.

Propaganda plays an important role in population work. Photo: My Ha.

For example, the awarding of blocks and hamlets that do not have people giving birth to a third child was previously assigned to the People's Councils of districts, cities and towns to decide; however, the award level in localities is not the same and is still quite low, some localities have even not allocated funds or in the past 2 years have had them cut. It is worth mentioning that recently, many blocks and hamlets in the area have merged, so implementing the construction of models that do not have people giving birth to a third child or more is even more difficult.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Ban - Director of the Center for Population - Family Planning of Hung Nguyen district said: "In previous years, each year our district had about 80 blocks and hamlets that did not have a third child. But this year, after merging more than 100 blocks and hamlets, there are only less than 10 hamlets that have done well in population policy. However, these units have not been rewarded in the past year. Therefore, I am very worried that when some population policies are "loosened", the increase and explosion of third child births will increase...".

Propaganda about population policy for people in Con Cuong district. Photo: My Ha

Previously, in Hung Nguyen district, there was a block that had not had a third child for more than 20 years, but last year there were still violators, and this partly stemmed from the lack of incentive policies for the entire government to take action.

Regarding rewards, many opinions also said that the current policy of encouraging communes to not have people having a third child is not reasonable because this is a very difficult target to achieve (the number of communes meeting the criteria each year can be counted on the fingers). Therefore, the province needs to increase the reward level for units that do well in population work.

“Currently, the blocks and hamlets have merged and the workload of population collaborators has doubled or tripled compared to the previous period. Therefore, the support level of 0.1% of the basic salary is no longer appropriate. In addition, there should also be a policy to encourage localities to maintain a good gender imbalance at birth, because this is a very important issue and is showing an increasing trend of imbalance.”

Ms. Tran Thi Luong - Director of the Center for Population and Family Planning of Dien Chau district.