Nghe An strives to find 'solutions' for population work at the grassroots level

Efforts to improve team capacity

This December, the meeting place for those working in the fieldpopulationThis is a training course on how to record A0 books, report on specialized statistics and exchange professional skills on population. This is one of the important contents deployed from the beginning of 2023, because the information of A0 books is the basic information of the specialized statistical information system of population - family planning, ensuring accuracy and objectivity.

Also at the conference, people working in population at the grassroots level exchanged professional skills on population and development, emphasizing the need to change population work tasks in the spirit of Resolution 21-NQ/TW of the Central Committee on "Continuing to shift the focus of population policy from family planning to population and development".

Representative of the Department of Population and Family Planning introduces the use of the new A0 book form. Photo: My Ha

Attending the training course, Mr. Cao Van Hoang - a population collaborator of Hamlet 8, Dien Thai Commune (Dien Chau) said that this is a very practical content. He himself has been a village health worker for 20 years but has only been a population collaborator for over 1 year. With two jobs and two different characteristics, a rather old man like him has encountered many difficulties. Therefore, the knowledge gained from professional training courses and experience sharing from colleagues will help new hires gain more experience to complete their tasks well.

In 2022, Nghe An Population Department has deployed dozens of training courses for more than 10,000 collaborators, officials and members of the Steering Committee for Population and Development at district and commune levels. In these training courses, population content will be conveyed specifically and in detail so that officials and officials working in population work can apply it flexibly and effectively in implementing population and development work in the locality.

In addition, attention is also paid to training skills, expertise, and communication methods on population and development work, so that everyone can agree and perform population work well.

Population collaborators are introducing population policy to people in Tuong Duong district. Photo: My Ha

Regarding capacity building for population workers, Mr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning added: Population workers are the bridge to convey the messages of the sector and are the "extended arm" of the population sector at the grassroots level. Therefore, promoting training, fostering, capacity building, and standardizing the population staff at all levels and sectors is very important and suitable to practical requirements.

Previously, implementing Resolution No. 15/2020/NQ-HDND, Nghe An had basically completed the rearrangement of the population apparatus system at the grassroots level. The whole province, from more than 180 communes, wards and towns in the area without population collaborators who are also medical staff, has now basically "covered". The association of population collaborators with medical staff in villages and hamlets will help the population work at the grassroots level to be organized systematically and more specialized. However, in the initial stages of implementation, the replacement of many experienced population collaborators also left certain "gaps".

Therefore, for the past 2 years, in order to improve the capacity of the population work team at the grassroots level, Nghe An has been the leading locality in the country in implementing training to improve the capacity of population officers from the province down to the grassroots level, to each village and hamlet, and this is a good premise to help the population work at the grassroots level operate more and more effectively.

Synchronize multiple solutions

Nghe An is a province with a large population, with a more difficult starting point than many other localities. While the national average has reached the replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children, Nghe An is currently still a province with a high fertility rate with a total fertility rate of 2.51 children/woman (ranked 2nd in the country, after Ha Tinh), the rate of giving birth to a third child or more is still high.

In addition, Nghe An is facing the problem of gender imbalance at birth and population aging at an alarming rate. The quality of the population is not commensurate with the province's potential. Especially, the issue of health care for the elderly, reproductive health of adolescents and young people; health care for mothers and children still faces many difficulties; the situation of early marriage and consanguineous marriage still exists in remote, isolated and particularly difficult areas. In reality, Nghe An is a miniature picture, converging all the difficulties and challenges of population work nationwide in terms of scale, structure, distribution and quality.

The above situation also forces Nghe An to be more aware of the importance of doing well the current population work. In particular, it is necessary to proactively and actively implement effectively Resolution No. 21 on population work in the new situation, the spirit of the 13th Congress of the Party Central Committee on population work and the Vietnam Population Strategy to 2030. Correctly implement the policy of continuing to shift the focus from population - family planning to population and development to comprehensively solve the issues of: population size, structure, distribution and improving population quality.

Mr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning directly consulted on population work for people at the grassroots level. Photo: My Ha

To complete the set tasks, Nghe An is also synchronously implementing many solutions from improving the capacity of the population work team at the grassroots level, creating a premise to improve the quality and efficiency of operations in districts, cities and towns.

At the same time, the sector also continues to innovate and improve the effectiveness of propaganda and education work to implement the campaign "Each couple should have 2 children", ensuring the rights and responsibilities in giving birth and raising children well. Thereby, promoting the self-awareness, voluntariness and mutual supervision of the community; highlighting the exemplary role of each cadre and party member associated with building a cultural family, village, hamlet and unit.

A propaganda session on population policy for disadvantaged areas. Photo: My Ha

To improve population quality, the sector effectively implements intervention solutions to improve population quality, proactively adjusts population growth rate, restrains the increase in sex ratio at birth; proposes solutions to promote the advantages of the "golden population" structure and respond to "population aging".

In order to effectively carry out population work, this December, Nghe An also launched the National Action Month on Population in 2022 with the theme "Improving population quality for rapid and sustainable national development".

Mr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning said: The National Action Month on Population aims to receive support and active participation from Party committees at all levels, authorities, departments, branches, unions, social organizations, and people of all walks of life in the face of new issues in current population work.