Workshop on Demography, Reproductive Health and Sustainable Economic Growth in Africa , 2 – 3 March 2006
Youth Incentives attended the workshop ‘Demography, Reproductive Health & Sustainable Economic Growth in Africa’ in Paris, France. The workshop was organised by the French International Development Cooperation Agency (AFD) and the British International Development Agency (DFID). Participants were drawn from across the NGO community, politicians, researchers, demographers, economists, development agencies and governmental organizations around the world.
The workshop provided participants with an opportunity to participate in an open debate on the extent and difficulties of current demographic developments in Africa and the importance of taking the identified factors (from the discussions and debates) into consideration in development policies. It also provided an opportunity for Francophone and Anglophone researchers to come together to assess the strengths and weaknesses of research to date. Nearly two hundred participants attended the workshop and presentations (and critical view of the presentations) were made by forty-three people.
The workshop focused on relationships between population growth and gender equality, reproductive health and AIDS, poverty, education, and the environment. Recommendations of the workshop are that:
• Donors need to cooperate with African governments, and African Governments should work together with their research institutes and with other countries in the region;
• Policy developments should be based on the outcome of research and clear evidence;
• Governments, NGOs and researchers need to recognise that demography and reproductive health is about people and their right to choose, and not about people as numbers;
• Donor governments need to increase aid to African research institutions that are generating demographic information or implementing demography related programmes;
• A call on African governments to implement evidence-based policies.
