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Detrimental Effects of Population Growth Due to Poor Governance

With increased population growth comes the need for family planning and Africa is an interesting continent when it comes to family planning. Besides South Africa, the continent as a whole has very high fertility rates. This is also coupled with lower rates of access to contraception, this is due to the lower levels of socioeconomic development. Also in Africa there is a heavy cultural resistance when it comes to family planning and the government also reflects the views of the people therefore progress in family planning is coming along slowly (Caldwell and Caldwell 76). In addition to this, Africans also have to worry about the AIDs epidemic as well as political unrest because governments in turmoil will not be able to properly provide family planning services to their citizens. "Countries currently or recently in this condition include Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Somalia, all of which have total fertility rates between 6.2 and seven children per woman, with little evidence of current decline." (Caldwell and Caldwell 83) The governments in Africa can help solve these problems by making family planning more of an outspoken priority with more funding and awareness (Caldwell and Caldwell 84). This will result in the expansion of family planning services across the continent which can provide access to a large array of different contraceptives to people.

Source: Caldwell, John C., and Pat Caldwell. “Africa: The New Family Planning Frontier.” Studies in Family Planning, vol. 33, no. 1, 2002, pp. 76–86., www.jstor.org/stable/2696334.

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