In honour of World Population Day some very important discussion took place in The Gambia. The subject of this discussion was family planning or as it was more correctly and appropriately referred to during the event family management rather than planning. This is a very important aspect of the empowerment of women. We are thankfully moving away from the concept in The Gambia that a wife is the property of her husband and so it follows that a woman’s body is her own property. She must be free to choose when she has a family and how large that family is. There a great fear on the part of many people that the free access to family planning on the part of women will lead to a fall in the birth rate and that this will adversely affect the population. This idea is again a hangover from the past. From 1951- 1975 the infant mortality rate was 50%. This meant that for every two children that were born one would die before the age of five. This meant that people, if they wished to have a family had to keep having babies. This day has thankfully passed. While the issue of infant mortality has not gone away by any stretch of the imagination the problem has decreased in severity since the 1950’s. The latest figures from the World Health Organisation put the infant mortality rate at 17%. Unfortunately the practice of having many children has not gone away with the bad times. The result is a burgeoning population who in many instances cannot be supported by their families. Their families cannot afford to send them to school and they stay at home hungry and uneducated. This is simply not fair. When a married couple have the freedom to manage both the number of children they have and the amount of time between the birth of those children their lives and, more importantly, the lives of their children improve greatly.

The theme of this year’s celebration of World Population Day was “Family Planning Is A Right”.

This was a very appropriate title because it plainly and simply states the fact of the matter.

When the UNFPA met with the media to discuss these issues a question and answer session was held. During the question and answer session, access to contraceptives by woman was questioned. The representative from GFPA, Ms Haddy Mboge, retorted that, there are outlets created for easy access to contraceptives. She stated that a clinical test is carried out first before any woman is allowed to use contraceptives. This, she argues, will avoid possible bad effects.

Like all aspects of medicine contraception has come a long way from its humble beginnings. It is now a safe dependable way for both men and women to take control of their lives and their futures. The government must ensure with all due haste that all women in The Gambia have access to this vital service which is, as stated above, their right. The longer people are left without access the more children and women will suffer.

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Following intense discussion regarding a foreign coach to take charge of the senior national team, the first Vice President of The Gambia Football Association, Major General Lang Tombong Tamba, has assured Gambians that the GFA will exploit all avenues to secure a foreign coach for the national team. He revealed this to Pointsports in a telephone interview yesterday.

 The 1st VP said that there is no need for panic. He said, “we will do everything possible to secure a foreign coach for the country before our game with Liberia in Monrovia,” he stated. Commenting on the level of preparation for the team to have test matches VP Tamba said that the GFA has written to many countries in the sub region to have a possible test match to prepare the team before they depart for Liberia. He said however that there as been no response adding, “we are still doing everything to see that the team has a test game before we leave.”

It will be recalled that The Gambia is in Group 6 with Liberia, Senegal, and Algeria.

The Gambia will first play Liberia on June 1st in Monrovia before playing Senegal on June 6th 2008 in Banjul.

The event is scheduled to take place at the National Theatre (Room DH2) from 1.30pm to 2.30pm. It is expected that speakers will include: Professor Kwame Karikari, Executive Director, Media Foundation for West Africa, Mr. Korsah Brown of CELD, Dr Steve Manteaw of the ISODEC and a Representative from NETRIGHT. 

 The speakers will raise issues related to Freedom of Information (FOI) from various perspectives in light of the Civil Society Forum’s general theme: Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of Globalization for Development. 

Various contributions will be made on the critical question of access to information against the background of Ghana’s search for a comprehensive FOI legislation, highlighting its value to the development aspirations of the nation as well as developing countries as a whole and specifically analysing how FOI, as an instrument for the empowerment of the people, contributes to sustainable development. 

The outcome of the discussions will be contained in a statement on FOI which will be incorporated into the Civil Society Organisations’ Declaration to be presented for the UNCTAD Conference.

All interested stakeholders are invited to attend.    

Issued by Ghana Coalition on Right to Information, April 16, 2008.

Members of the Gambia Association of Local Government Councils (GALGA) on Tuesday met at the office of the governor of Western Region to discuss issues of significance to the association.

The meeting revolved around car park fees, report on GALGA’s activities and achievement from January to June 2007, launching of Rural Water Supply Sector Programme (RWSSP) in all local government areas, among many others.

In his remarks at the opening of the forum, the Governor of Western Region, Abdou F.M. Badjie, thanked his colleagues for choosing his region as the venue for the meeting, adding that the forum was a clear indication that decentralization has come to stay.

He noted that the meeting was also an indication of the interest members have in the promotion of local governance and the development of local governments.

Governor Badjie pointed out that local government authorities have a responsibility to come up with initiatives for the interest of the people and, therefore, urged his equivalents to take the meeting seriously.

The Ivorian health ministry is reviewing its policy of charging fees for health services, hearing recommendations from UN agencies, aid groups and other experts on potential changes to the 10-year-old system.

The effort comes as aid organisations are lobbying the government to provide free health care, at least to some at-risk groups.

The government is “evaluating the health cost recovery system, in place since 1996, to see what has worked and what has not,” N’da K. Simeon, head of communications at the Ministry of Public Health and Hygiene, told IRIN. But he said the evaluation is not linked to a debate swirling in Côte d’Ivoire over the merits of free access, saying it is simply time to take stock of a policy that has existed for more than a decade.

Health experts worldwide have long debated the merits of free health care, with some proponents saying that fees deprive masses of people of basic services. Opponents of free access argue that making patients pay fosters community participation in health care and is necessary for the upkeep of the staff and facilities that make up the public health system.

The Ivorian health ministry has invited representatives of UN agencies and non-governmental organisations, as well as other experts, to a 27 to 29 August meeting to air recommendations and study the issue, N’da said. The gathering is to include medical officials from around the country.

Objectives of the seminar include “to take stock” of Côte d’Ivoire’s health cost recovery policy and to “reflect on opportunities for a revision of the tariff scale for health services”, according to a health ministry document laying out the meeting's agenda, obtained by IRIN.

The document says: “We have seen a certain malfunction in the execution of cost recovery for health services” – notably inconsistency in tariffs and medical supply problems in some health facilities. The document adds that some communities “find that health services bestowed to them are too costly.”

Aid groups weigh in

The health ministry’s evaluation comes as aid workers are trying to convince the government to adopt a policy of free health care, at least for some vulnerable groups such as children under a certain age or people with malnutrition.

Unaccustomed to humanitarian crises, Côte d’Ivoire saw an influx of aid groups after a rebellion and brief civil war in 2002-03. Now, as the country creeps toward peace, it is working to revitalise health and education infrastructure particularly in the north and west, a goal that has been complicated by an exodus of state workers to the government-controlled south when rebels occupied the north.

The debate over free health care came to the fore this year when Médecins Sans Frontières ended its work at state hospitals in Bouake and Man, where for about four years it provided free health services. MSF said in a recent internal report that it hopes the Ivorian health ministry and external donors will continue to support public health facilities “for a population still heavily affected by the crisis”.

At the Bouake and Man hospitals, where MSF had worked until May and July respectively, health services are still free pending a health ministry decision. The government cannot impose "a brutal rupture" on communities that got used to free care, the health ministry's N'da told IRIN.

Free for certain groups

Save the Children UK (SC-UK), which provides free medicines to children under five and pregnant women in western Côte d’Ivoire, is another group that plans to weigh in on the government’s health fees policy.

“Our global position is that health care should be free at the point of access,” SC-UK country director Heather Kerr told IRIN. “We’d like to see that for everyone,” she said, but added that since the Ivorian government does not appear ready to adopt such a comprehensive change, SC-UK will likely push for free care for certain groups. “We have to find a target group or a target area – it’s difficult [in Côte d’Ivoire today] to define who’s vulnerable.”

Vulnerable groups that UN agencies would like to see receive free care are those suffering malnutrition, according to Chouahibou Nchamoun, a nutrition specialist at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Côte d'Ivoire. UNICEF goes along with government policy and does not take a position on health cost recovery in the country, but it has joined with the World Health Organization and World Food Programme in a joint recommendation of free care for people with "severe acute malnutrition", Nchamoun said.

The World Bank, which funds recovery and development projects in Côte d'Ivoire, says it is ready to back a system of free health services. "The World Bank believes that poor people should not have to pay for access to basic healthcare services,” Phil Hay, spokesman for the World Bank’s human development department in Washington D.C., said. “Ultimately it's up to developing country governments to decide their own financial policies around healthcare, but the Bank stands ready to help governments which do abolish user fees for health, to find other sources of finance to make up for the revenue they lose from doing away with fees.”

As efforts continue to be stepped up in paving a way-forward for a single African government, Gambia’s literary luminaries last Friday converged at the School of Nursing in Banjul to discuss the issue and other cognate ones.

The intellectual discourse, which revolved around the theme United States of Africa- Problems and Challenges, was geared towards drumming up support for a united Africa.

Speaking in the forum, Dr. Omar Jah, Head of Humanities and Language Department at the UTG, lamented the lack of complete independence of African states as well as the identity crisis on the continent.
He pointed out that the African continent is bearing the brunt of identity problem because many Africans are not prepared to identify themselves as Africans.

To Dr. Jah, Africa could unite under a single government if essential elements such as mutual respect and that spirit of Africanness are embraced.

Also speaking at the forum was the Managing Director of the Daily Observer Company, Dr. Sarja Taal, who observed that Africa comprises of two classes of people. The first class, he went on, comprises of intellectuals and the wealthy. The second class, he added, are the illiterates and the poor. He went on to state that the debate is not a question of why Africa can unite but when and how it could be done. 

For his part, Dr. Lamin Sidibeh, Head of Social Sciences Department at the UTG, dilated on the diversity and the attitudes of Africans. He asserted that United States of Africa is long overdue, noting that group coherence is indeed needed and that the fundamental determinant issues such as behavioural aspects, organisational and cultural pluralism should be addressed.

Other speakers on the occasion include Messrs. Halifa Sallah, Demba Ceesay of the Gambia College and the symposium was chaired by Dr. Gumbo Touray of the UTG.