By Abigirl Tembo, Health Editor
ZIMBABWE is constantly working on strategies to further reduce the maternal mortality rate in the country and ensure women have access to family planning and sexual reproductive health services.
This was said by Vice President General Retired Dr Constantino Chiwenga ahead of the International Conference on Family Planning, which kicks off this Monday in Thailand.
After nearly four years since their last meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, the reproductive health stakeholders will convene in Pattaya, Thailand from Monday, November 13 to November 17 for the International Conference on Family Planning, the world’s largest convening of family planning and sexual reproductive health rights experts.
Zimbabwe’s delegation to the conference is being led by Vice President, General Rtd Dr Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the Health and Child Care Minister.
“The importance of this international conference we have come to attend is that it is dealing with population and family planning. You might recall that the last conference was held in Kigali Rwanda and now followed by this which is taking place in Thailand, the issue of the population around the world is a thorny issue which has to be handled well and it is combined with family planning and there we would be also looking at the issues of how the population is balancing like in our own country, what is our growth so we want to measure ourselves and compare with what is happening the world over in areas like maternal health.
“We have recorded a tremendous improvement in the last five years. We would like to get to a point where we have zero deaths or very minimal deaths at birth and this is why we are here to share the issues of the population as they help in planning economic development,” said Dr Chiwenga.
The conference, which is being conducted in a hybrid format, will bring together community and government leaders, advocates, researchers and scientists, and health practitioners to innovate, collaborate and accelerate progress toward universal health coverage and family planning.
