Social Peculiarities of the Family Planning Problem in Tropical Africa

Abstract

The subject is reflected in the important international documents of the UN – the Millennium development Goals 2001 and the Sustainable develop-ment Goals 2015. The article examines implementing family planning pro-grams in Tropical Africa, analyzes the attitude of ruling circles and people masses to this problem in the context of centuries-old traditions of having many children, great value of free child labor in agriculture, polygyny, re-ligiosity and other socio-cultural stereotypes. Despite the efforts of interna-tional organizations, most of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing a slow spread of contraception, the birth rate is “stalling” at high rates, or the decline in fertility is slow. But there are some positive examples of countries, where the use of con-traception reaches the 70% level recommended by international experts-demographers, and the birth rate is decreasing, approaching the replace-ment level. These countries are Ethiopia, Rwanda, Madagascar, Ghana, Kenya, and the countries of the South African region. It is likely that the success of family planning and the reduction of the birth rate are due to the consolidated approach of government circles, NGOs, private, public and international organizations, with the crucial role of international donors and financial funds. In the course of evolutionary socio-economic development, fertility rates will decrease. But in the next decades, there will still be an increase in the population of a number of SSA countries by 2–3 times. Without substantial foreign financial assistance peoples of Africa, especially the peoples of Cen-tral and West Africa, will not be able to cope with this problem.