In his first public speech about family planning, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade addressed more than 2,000 conference participants during the opening plenary session. He acknowledged that it was controversial to talk about population control but said that family planning is essential to addressing poverty and economic development. The president’s suggestion that “couples voluntarily limit the number of children they have” surprised many Senegalese when broadcast on local television and radio stations.
IntraHealth International organized site visits for a team from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and for other donors, journalists, and conference participants to talk to people beyond the conference walls.
The group went to Pikine, about 15 kilometers from the center of Dakar. With a population of 1.2 million, Pikine is a predominately poor, overcrowded urban area with a weak educational system, low literacy rates (in some areas only 10%), and hygiene and sanitation issues.
Visiting a family in Pikine. In Senegal, 44% of the population is 15 years or younger, and 12% of Senegalese women use modern contraception. Women in sub-Saharan Africa have more than twice as many children as women in other regions: 5.2 on average, compared with 2.2 in Latin America and 2.7 in South Central Asia. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 19% of women use modern contraception; in West Africa, only half that many, or 10%, use modern contraception.
IntraHealth President and CEO Pape Gaye (center) with The Guardian newspaper’s health editor, Sarah Boseley (left), ask teens in Pikine about their take on family planning and the president’s speech.
The teenagers said that they were happy that President Wade spoke about family planning, but they also expressed that he might have gone too far in talking about “limiting births.” When we asked these teens how many children they wanted to have, however, most said two or three.
Pape Gaye, president and CEO of IntraHealth, visits with a mother and her newborn in Dominique health center in Pikine. The health center serves a total population of approximately 350,000, including clients referred from local health posts. The ISSU project has trained health workers in family planning and is working with the center to integrate family planning into all services.
Imam Abdou Khadre and other religious leaders welcome visitors to their mosque in the neighborhood of Djiddah Thiaroye Kao in Pikine. These religious leaders serve as liaisons between the mosque and community on family planning issues as they relate to Islam. Visitors talked to them about Wade’s speech during the conference and the debates that ensued on local radio stations.
Visitors met with religious leaders in a mosque in Pikine. Most Muslims in Senegal seek guidance on all social, religious, and cultural matters from their spiritual leaders. These leaders, trained by the ISSU project, agreed that couples should voluntarily limit the number of children they have when they do not have the resources to take care of their children.
Aliou Diouck, mayor of the commune of Djiddah Thiaroye Kao in Pikine, welcomed visitors to his office. The commune is one of 16 in Pikine, a densely populated district with nearly 200,000 people living within 2.4 square kilometers. Diouck himself is one of 21 children, and he sees family planning as essential to addressing challenges his commune faces, including low literacy rates and education.
Back at the conference, Mohammed Barry, a 20-year-old Gambian human rights activist and youth representative, spoke passionately about the need for the global health community to engage and listen to young people. Barry has lived openly with HIV for nearly 14 years. He is a winner of the Global Youth Social Entrepreneurship Award 2010, and he is currently studying at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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