The Prime Minister, Edouard Ngirente, yesterday briefed Members of both chambers of parliament on measures that government has taken to promote early child development.

Ngirente told the MPs that though there has been positive results in the Early Childhood Development Programme (ECDP), the government is yet to get to a level that it is striving for.

"We have seen some improvements but we are yet to get where we want (to be),” he said. 

For instance, he said, in 2015, the number of children who were dying before turning five was 50 in 1,000, an improvement from 76 children in 1,000 in 2010. The PM said that government’s target is to reduce the figure to 35/1000.

Ngirente pointed out that, today, women who die due to pregnancy and childbirth related complications stand at 210 in every 100,000 women, down from 476 in every 100,000 in 2010.

Government’s target is to reduce this figure to 126 women in every 100,000 by 2024.

The PM’s optimistic about achieving this target because 99 per cent of expectant mothers go for antenatal and of those who gave birth to healthy babies, 44 per cent had gone for antenatal all the four required times.

MP Christine Muhongayire speaks yesterday in parliament. Sam Ngendahimana.

Challenges

Ngirente said that there is still an issue of lack of enough food in some districts, which continues to undermine children growth and development.

The government and the World Bank are working together in 13 districts where stunting and poverty were reported to be high.

"The programme started in 13 districts that were chosen because they were poorer than others and they also had the highest number of stunted children.

Ngirente also cited issues related to lack of proper hygiene, lack of access to enough water and domestic conflicts as some other reasons that continue to affect child growth.

Nineteen per cent of the women in Rwanda suffer from anaemia while 18 per cent of girls between 15 and 19 are facing the same yet they are tomorrow’s mothers, he said.

Measures taken

Over the last couple of years, government launched various programmes to fight poor feeding, child stunting and poor living conditions.

 In 2013, a programme targeting the first one thousand days of a child’s life was introduced.

According to Ngirente, the programme has become very popular and has improved lives of both mothers and children from conception to the first one thousand days of a child’s life.

"This programme has worked well at a rate of 69 per cent and the knowledge rate on how to care for a child has improved to 90 per cent from 22 per cent in 2013,” the PM said. 

The rate at which parents rush a sick child to hospital has improved to 59 percent from 23 per cent, he said. Those who now know the value of a mosquito net has risen from 33 per cent to 73 per cent. All these are improvements that we are happy about,” he said.

He said that, in terms of education, teachers’ colleges were now preparing teachers who are being sent to work in pre-schools.

"More than 500 have already been trained. As our economy continues to grow, the budget set aside for schools will continue to increase focusing on increasing the number of teachers and professional teachers,” he said.

Since 2012, 363 children taken to jail alongside their convicted mothers were given day care centres to help them have normal lives. At three, the children are placed into families.

MPs react

Quoting 2015 statistics, Ngirente attracted strong reactions from the MPs when he said that the ratio of children to women today stands at 4:1, which is an improvement from 6:1. 

MP Pierre Claver Rwaka called for a serious focus on promoting family planning, saying that it had the potential to slow down the progress that is being made today.

"You are saying that four children per woman is an improvement from 6 but even that difference took a really long time. If you look at the pace at which our economy is moving and you look at our population growth, there is a mismatch. We need to do something,” he said.

MP Theoneste Safari Begumisa congratulated the government for all the improvements but wondered if the programme would be sustainable without curbing teenage pregnancies.

"There is an issue of teenage pregnancies. We have many programmes that are working very well but looking at last year’s statistics, you will see that close to 17,000 teenagers were pregnant last year alone. I have not heard anything about them in your presentation and I think it’s a real issue to look into,” he said.

MP Juvenal Nkusi said that, though the numbers look good, there is need for radical measures on family planning.

"The numbers look good but we are not going to achieve what we want unless we actively encourage family planning. We need radical measures because 15 per cent of the girls between 15 and 19 are having children,” he said.

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