Implementing population work well is a great contribution to eliminating poverty, backwardness and promoting sustainable development.

(Baonghean) - Dr. Ho Duc Phoc - Secretary of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee

Population and family planning work is a very important content of the country's development strategy, not only having economic significance but also cultural and social significance, being a factor in promoting human resources, contributing to sustainable development...

In addition to the consequences of war, natural disasters, loss of labor capacity, etc., having many children is one of the main causes of poverty. Rapid population growth will cause serious shortages of material resources to support people (housing, education, employment, food, drinking water, clothing, etc.), causing great difficulties for families and society. In many cases, they themselves cannot overcome the situation and become impoverished. The State does not have enough resources to provide timely support when the population increases too quickly. In particular, the sudden increase in population makes the State unable to meet the costs of health care, education, and culture. Poor households do not have enough money to pay for education and medical treatment, and have difficulty raising their children to develop comprehensively and successfully. This leads to illiteracy and dropout of children of all ages and prolonged illness among the people.

In our country, there are still here and there the notions of “having more children is better than having more wealth”, “God creates elephants, God creates grass”, and the desire to have a son to continue the family line, to have a place to rely on in old age. However, they do not realize that having many children, before their eyes, is a scene of deprivation in every way. Poverty and hardship will make them unable to fulfill the morality of taking care of their elderly parents, unable to fulfill their responsibilities as parents to their children, unable to fulfill their responsibilities to themselves and their duties as citizens to society.

Population growth will create a large young labor force. In our country, with a high birth rate, children reaching adulthood become an abundant and valuable labor force of the country. But what is the quality of this labor force? That has become a matter of concern! Poverty is still a big challenge, many children are illiterate and drop out of school, their intelligence is underdeveloped, their bodies are weak, can this abundant young labor force meet the needs of the country's industrialization and modernization? The number of young workers increases but the quality of the labor force decreases, becoming a common concern of the whole society. Families are in a deadlock because their children have difficulty finding stable jobs and are unemployed, they easily fall into social evils. The State also faces many difficulties in implementing economic and social plans, while having to worry about helping poor families, increasing costs for health care - education, culture, and public security. The results of sociological surveys in Vietnam show that 50-60% of the total number of households surveyed have many children, leading to poverty.

Conference to honor typical families of Nghe An province in 2013.

In recent times, the work of population and family planning in our province has always been given attention in leadership, direction and implementation, and has achieved remarkable results. The population growth rate decreased to 1.16% (in 2012); the birth rate of the third child or more decreased from 24% (in 2003) to 18.18% (in 2012); the rate of couples using modern contraceptive methods increased from 64.5% (in 2003) to 76.2% (in 2012). The awareness of Party committees, authorities and the whole society about population and family planning work has had positive changes. The size of families with one or two children is increasingly common. The quality of the population is increasingly improved. These results have significantly contributed to the socio-economic development of the province, increased annual per capita income, eliminated hunger, reduced poverty, and improved people's living standards. This is truly a great effort by the Provincial Party Committee, Provincial People's Committee, all levels, sectors, and the population work team.

However, we are facing many significant challenges in implementing the population and family planning policy. Currently, Nghe An is a province with a large population, ranking 4th in the country and is continuing to increase. While the whole country has reached the replacement level of fertility, Nghe An's fertility rate, although decreasing, is not stable and still high, and is in the group of 10 provinces with high fertility rates; population density is 177 people/km2 (6-7 times higher than the world standard density). The population growth rate and the third child birth rate tend to increase, especially in mountainous and delta communes. This is a difficult problem, posing many issues that need to be solved, such as housing, education, medical examination and treatment, employment, entertainment, etc.

The gender imbalance at birth is at an alarming level, although the quality of the population has improved, it is still low... Economists have calculated that to increase the population by 1%, GDP must increase by 4% to maintain the current standard of living. Or as the United Nations calculated, if 1 USD is invested in the population, 31 USD will be saved for basic social services. According to PAO's calculations, at least one person must have 0.25ha of cultivated land to ensure food security, while we have less than 0.1ha/person (about 30% of the world standard). Our province has the largest area in the country (16,500km2), but the delta area only accounts for 17%, which is very difficult in terms of rice land. The population is increasing, it is very difficult to balance it with the effort to increase GDP, affecting people's lives, the quality of the race, as well as achieving the goal of a rich people, a strong country, democracy, fairness, and civilization.

The Resolution of the 17th Provincial Party Congress of Nghe An Province sets out: “Strive to become a fairly developed province in the Northern region by 2015, creating the foundation to basically become a modern industrial province by 2020”. To successfully achieve that goal, first of all, it is necessary to continue to stabilize the scale, improve the quality of the population, and create human resources to meet the requirements of the industrialization and modernization of the homeland and the country. In particular, the Party committees at all levels, the government, departments, branches, organizations and people in the whole province in the coming time need to focus on implementing the following drastic and synchronous solutions:

First: Further strengthen the leadership and direction of population work and reproductive health care. Make population/family planning work an important content, a regular and focused task, effectively integrated with the professional activities of the sector and other socio-economic programs. Continue to implement Directive 09-CT/TU of the Provincial Party Committee, Resolution of the Provincial People's Council and Decision of the Provincial People's Committee on population and family planning policies effectively, in accordance with the characteristics of each locality and unit. Well organize the signing of commitments to implement population and family planning policies for party members and people; strengthen inspection, supervision and strictly handle organizations and individuals who violate.

Second: Further promote propaganda and mobilization work on population/family planning. Party committees and authorities at all levels must soon bring propaganda and mobilization work to the front and organizations, must propagate to each family and member and consider this a regular key political task. Mobilize and persuade society and people to voluntarily implement each couple having only 1 to 2 children to raise children well. This is a major campaign, so cadres and party members must be exemplary in implementing population/family planning policies; link the implementation of population/family planning policies with the building of families, villages, hamlets, neighborhoods, agencies, cultural units, and new rural construction.

Third: Focus on consolidating, perfecting and stabilizing the organization and staff of population/family planning from the province to the village level to have enough capacity to direct, manage and organize implementation. At the same time, pay attention to advising on building a system of population/family planning policies, in which attention should be paid to policies for staff working on population at the grassroots level; emulation, rewards and handling of violations of population/family planning policies. Along with increasing the investment level from the State budget for the population/family planning target program, it is necessary to actively mobilize contributions from the whole society. Ensure sufficient funding for population/family planning work, strictly manage, coordinate and effectively use investment resources.

Fourth: Pay attention to population quality, through the development and implementation of projects to improve population quality; there should be solutions to promote the advantage of "golden population" to have an abundant labor force, meeting the human resource requirements to carry out the cause of industrialization and modernization of the homeland and country.

Fifth: Focus on developing and implementing the province's action plan for the 2011-2015 period, to implement the Government's Population and Reproductive Health Strategy for the 2011-2020 period; the National Population Target Program for the 2011-2015 period, ensuring that the population strategy and target program for the next period are effectively implemented, serving as a scientific basis for developing other socio-economic strategies and plans.

By synchronously implementing the above solutions, we believe that the population/family planning work of our province will achieve many new achievements in the coming time, for the goal of stabilizing the scale, gradually improving the quality of the population, and building human resources to meet the requirements of the industrialization and modernization of the homeland and country!

H.D.P