By Ally Jamah

Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya has promised to revive family planning programmes to counter the country’s high rate of population growth.

In a statement to mark World Population Day on Sunday, the Minister said the programmes had been active and effective in the 1980s and early 1990s before losing steam.

"We are planning to convene a National Leaders Population Conference later this year to address the increasing population growth rate," he said.

An average Kenyan woman gives birth to five children, with about a million pregnancies every year in Kenya being unplanned.

Nearly one in every four women aged between 15-19 already has a child.

The National Co-ordinating Agency for Population and Development (NCAPD) have warned that Kenya’s population is expanding too fast, and may become unsustainable in the near future.

"There is a need for family planning that is not being met. One in four married women expresses a desire to space or limit their births, but are not using any form of family planning," said NCAPD CEO Boniface K’Oyugi.

K’oyugi warned that if Kenya did not control its high rates of population growth, quality of education, health and housing would suffer while food security will decline.

"The risks caused by overpopulation include lack of living space, shortage of jobs, sky-high housing prices, environmental deterioration and scarcity of energy and resources,"

He further said little was being done to convince Kenyans to embrace family planning tools and make them easily available in health facilities.

"We urge more emphasis to be placed in managing our population growth, if the country is to achieve development," added K’Oyugi.

Funding for family planning programmes fell in the early 1990s when the HIV/AIDS became the "new kid on the block".

NCAPD is now calling for increased funding to popularise family planning among Kenyans.

"NCAPD’s budget should be gradually increased from the current Sh530 million to Sh5 billion in the next five years to reduce population growth. The country will make huge savings in the long run," said the Director of Reproductive Health Dr Bashir Hassan.

NCAPD statistics show that Kenya’s population increased by 12 million since 1999 to stand at 40 million today, a 35 per cent rise in only a decade.