Mr. Benjamin Whyte, Western Regional Population Officer, on Monday called on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to integrate population issues into all aspects of their development planning.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Sekondi, he said development planning should be people-centered.
Mr. Whyte said the National Population Policy (NPC) places importance on the integration of population issues into development planning at the national, regional and district levels.
Mr. Whyte said in line with its mandate, the National Population Council (NPC) has over the years advocated for the integration of population
factors into metropolitan, municipality and district plans.
He said recommendation by the National Development Planning Commission requires that the preparation of short, medium and long term plans should compile and update district profile.
Mr. Whyte said the demographic component of the district profile should include items such as population size, population growth rate, spatial
distribution of population, population density, age and sex composition, household size and characteristics and labor force.
He said since Population and Housing Censuses are conducted every 10 years, there should be projection of the district population size for future needs assessment.
Mr. Whyte said the structure of the district population size should be related to issues such as provision of infrastructure, basic education,
employment and social welfare needs, among other factors.
He said every medium term plan should capture the total fertility rate, expectation of life at birth, percentage of children fully immunized, percentage of supervised delivery, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality
rate, percentage of population within standard distance of health facility, children of school going age, school enrolment rate, teacher-pupil ratio, labor force and population and employment.
Mr. Whyte said targets set should be realistic and should be in conformity with projections made by the Ghana Statistical Service.