ICPD+30: Where We Are on Population Policy in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa

Keita Ohashi, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Thirty years have passed after a major paradigm shift in population policy at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. Around the same time in the mid-1990s, the sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, entered the fertility transition. The measurement of the success in population policy, however, is not straightforward, given the wide variety of socioeconomic progress among the countries. This study will review the trends on population policy in sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on the last thirty years. We will use the data from the World Population Policies Database of the United Nations for the status of government positions. The changes in reproductive health laws (family code, marriage, abortion) will be also reviewed with a particular focus on Francophone countries because this cultural and linguistic group was previously more hesitant to take liberal positions in reproductive behaviors, such as birth limitation with contraceptives and induced abortion.