Ministry of Population Welfare will hold a one-day seminar on "Population and Development for the Parliamentarians" on Monday as part of its Advocacy and Communication Strategy to elicit sustained political commitment.
"The step aims at motivating parliamentarians to boost our efforts being launched in their respective constituencies," Minister for Population Welfare, Chaudhry Shahbaz Hussain said this at a press conference here on Saturday.
The minister said Pakistan's population scenario was encouraging as population growth rate was tilting down from the last several years, adding there existed a room for further keeping down the growth rate to achieve the ultimate objective of population stabilisation as envisaged in the Population Policy, 2002.
Presently the population of Pakistan is 153.45 million, which had increased five folds since independence.
The minister said though fertility transition had begun in the country, yet population was growing at the rate of 1.9 percent per annum resultantly adding 2.9 million people each year, which diluted over all development efforts of government for improving quality of the life of people and to eradicate poverty. He hoped that the concerted efforts of the government, international organisations and strong political commitment of MPs and councillors would make the programme a success.
Ministry of Population Welfare set the target to reduce Population Growth Rate from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent by the year 2020, Total Fertility Rate from 4.1 to 2.1 and Increase Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) from 34 percent to 70 percent.
A large number of federal ministers, ministers of state, MNAs, senators, parliamentary secretaries, provincial ministers, members of the standing committees, members of provincial assemblies and district nazims to attend the seminar.
The seminar will also be attended by key government officials, representatives of the international donor agencies, diplomats, academia, NGOs and civil society to sensitise them on the issue of population and development.