Opinion leader writes to County's Minister of Public Health urging him to "resist the diabolic efforts of UNFPA to stop our population growth so that we remain undeveloped and poor".
By Yemti Harry Ndienla
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
The body also seeks to improve the lives and expand the choices of individuals and couples. Over time, the reproductive choices they make, multiplied across communities and countries, alter population structures and trends. Furthermore, equally UNFPA helps governments, at their request, to formulate policies and strategies to reduce poverty and support sustainable development beside assisting to collect and analyse population that can help them understand population trends. And it encourages governments to take into account the needs of future generations, as well as those alive today.
It is with this backdrop that the UNFPA office in Yaounde, Cameroon recently donated materials worth CFA 260 to assist Health services and reproductive health care in Cameroon. The donation which If put to proper use will help improve the country's healthsector over the next five years includes amongst others; seven 4-wheel-drive pickup vehicles; four Prado jeeps; 18 motorbikes; male and female condoms and other reproductive health kits.
While analyzing the functions of the various gifts, UNFPA country representative, Faustin Yao said the donation was part of the organisation’s contribution to the improvement of the quality of life and wellbeing of Cameroonians through promoting quality reproductive health services.
While four of the pickup vehicles will be retained to serve UNFPA’s representations in the hinterlands of Cameroon, the representative told Cameroon’s minister of Public Health Andre Mama Fouda, that the other three will be put at the service of the drug distribution service, CENAME, of the Ministry of Health.
That the motorbikes will serve UNFPA intervention zones of the Centre and South provinces while the condoms and reproductive kits will also be distributed in UNFPA-supported health districts in the country.
On the other hand, the condoms and contraceptive kits some will be distributed as part of UNFPA’s humanitarian assistance to some 65000 Chadian and CAR refugees settled in Langui in the North and parts of East provinces of Cameroon.
The UNFPA according to a pres release, will be providing over CFA 7.1 billion FCFA (contributed to the greater part by UNFPA and by multi-donors and co-donors to a lesser part (2.1 billions)) as assistance to the Cameroon government over a 5-year period. Meanwhile the UNFPA’s assistance to the government of Cameroon in 2008 is estimated at 1.3 billions with one billion of this amount reserved for the health ministry alone, to boost reproductive health.
But in an open letter to the country's minister of Public health Andre Mama Fouda, one of Cameroon's widely acclaimed opinion leaders, Chief SN. Ngwana, described the gift as a murderous plan to Cameroonians by government and UNFPA. Hear him,
“What is more disturbing is the fact that the Cameroon Government and UNFPA intend to implement a murderous plan which spans from 2008 to 2012”.
Full text of the letter has been published separately
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