‘Two are enough’: Gov’t’s bid for birth control

CAIRO – 27 May 2018: The Ministry of Social Solidarity launched a family planning campaign Wednesday with the slogan “Two are enough”, aiming to contain the increasing population.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has said population growth is “a challenge as critical as that of terrorism.” The campaign aims to reduce the birth rate to 2.4, targeting rural areas where many view large families as a source of economic strength and resist birth control, believing that it is un-Islamic.

The Ministry of Social Solidarity pointed out that the project will be implemented through 100 NGOs selected by a technical committee that includes experts in various fields. These organizations were selected from 250 NGOs that submitted to participate in the implementation of the project. They were evaluated to assure their technical, financial and administrative performance.

MP Fayez Baraka, a member of Parliament's Education Committee, told Egypt Today that this campaign will help in providing a better level of education and providing employment opportunities for graduates.

The Egyptian population hit 104.27 million, both domestically and abroad, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics’ (CAPMAS) latest census in 2017. Those living inside the country amount to 94.8 million, while expats are estimated at 9 million, according to statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ministry of Health and Population, headed by Minister Ahmed Emad El-Din Rady, launched a new program on May 10 for family planning in Egypt, in cooperation with USAID, to respond to Egypt’s rapid population growth.

The program aims to improve citizens’ health behavior and support the quality of family planning services and reproductive health, according to Soaad Abdel Megid, head of the Population and Family Planning Sector.

She added that an electronic program will be established to register the beneficiaries of the program, implement a distance learning model, design a family planning and reproductive health curriculum in the medical and nursing schools, and involve the private and public sectors in providing the service.

USAID will provide technical assistance and training to the Ministry of Health and Population to strengthen its Family Planning and Reproductive Health Program. Activities will help increase demand for family planning services and enhance the quality of services, aiming to improve contraceptive use and reduce fertility over time. The 5-year, $19 million program will be implemented in nine governorates in Upper Egypt and areas of Cairo and Alexandria, the U.S. embassy in Cairo stated on Saturday.

“We know that USAID family planning programs have made tremendous impact in the past. We stand poised again to be a part of the solution to the rapid growth in Egypt’s fertility rate,” USAID Egypt Mission Director Sherry Carlin said at the program launch.

Egypt’s Family Planning Program (SEFPP), a five-year, USAID-funded activity, in cooperation with the U.S. John Snow Research and Training Institute, aims to create sustainable solutions that will help address Egypt’s growing population by increasing the use of family planning methods and promoting healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies. Project implementation is focused on the nine governorates of Upper Egypt and the slums of Cairo and Alexandria.

For nearly 40 years, USAID has worked with Egypt on projects related to healthy behaviors, family planning, nutrition, immunization and disease prevention activities.