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POPULATION CONTROL, DEVELOPMENT, AND GHANA'S NATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMME, 1960–1972

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2019

HOLLY ASHFORD Open the ORCID record for HOLLY ASHFORD [Opens in a new window]
HOLLY ASHFORD*
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University of Cambridge
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Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, West Road, Cambridge, cb3 9ef[email protected]
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Abstract

The National Family Planning Programme (NFPP) was launched in Ghana in May 1970. It was a tool to implement the 1969 Population Policy Paper, which the military government, the National Liberation Council (NLC), had written with the aid of Ford Foundation advisers. The policy paper reiterated international ‘overpopulation’ discourses that pushed for national planning to stem population growth, especially in ‘developing’ countries. Indeed, it constituted an example of development planning. It discursively linked Ghana's prosperity, and modernity, to stemming rapid population growth through fertility limitation. When the NFPP was launched by the Progress Party (PP) government in 1970, its focus was to implement the population policy by limiting population growth through curbing fertility. International discourses of development and population, as well as the specific interventions of organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Population Council, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, shaped Ghana's family planning story. However, choices over the implementation of family planning were ultimately linked to governments’ modernization and development projects and ideologies. Different approaches to family planning by the Nkrumah, NLC, and PP governments highlight the fact that family planning was ultimately political, but legitimized by development discourses of global and local origin.

Type
Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , March 2020 , pp. 469 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

The research for this article was kindly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and Sujit Sivasundaram for their comments, and to Gareth Austin for his guidance in writing this article. The first version of this article was written for the African Studies Association in Africa conference in Legon, in 2016. I would like to thank organizers and those who gave me feedback on that occasion.

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65 Ibid., p. 86. Sai actually went on to advise Mr Omaboe in the writing of the Population Policy, which is discussed below.

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101 Interviews were carried out by the author between Oct. 2017 and Feb. 2018 in the western, central, and eastern regions of Ghana. Some interviews were conducted with the help of research assistants: Moses Andoh, William Akuetteh Otoo, and Abiza Isaah. I am also grateful to Cerdick Ofori Antoh for his help with translation and transcription.

102 ‘Ghana National Family Planning Programme progress report July 1971–June 1972’, p. 3, RAC, Ford Foundation collection, grant #007168, reel 4048.

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105 Ibid.

106 Ibid.

107 For the state of Ghana's economy following the 1966 coup, see J. D. Esseks, ‘Economic policies’, in Austin and Luckham, eds., Politicians and soldiers in Ghana, pp. 37–61.

108 See, for example, ‘Mother and child care’, Sunday Mirror, 10 May 1974, p. 6.

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114 Ibid.

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120 See RAC, Ford Foundation collection, reel 4048, which outlines Ford grants for ‘Family planning assistance to Ghana’ between 1969 and 1978.

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122 ‘Site visit to Korle Bu Hospital, Accra’, June 1970, p. 5, RAC, Population Council collection, box 581, folder 5630.

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124 Barnor, A socio-medical adventure in Ghana, p. 265.

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130 Ibid.

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132 ‘Ghana National Family Planning Programme progress report – March 1971’, p. 3, RAC, Ford Foundation collection, grant #007168, reel 4048.

133 ‘Ghana National Family Planning Progress report – December 1970’, PRAAD, Koforidua, ERG 5/1/41. In May 1970, 20 per cent of all family planning clinics were located in the city of Accra.

134 ‘National family planning week’, 1 May 1971, PRAAD, Kumasi, ARG 2/14/10.

135 ‘Minutes of the first meeting…for the formal launching of the Regional Family Planning Programme’, 15 June 1970, p. 2, PRAAD, Koforidua, ERG 5/1/41.

136 Ibid.

137 ‘Regional launchings’, 18 Aug. 1970, PRAAD, Kumasi, ARG 2/14/10.

138 ‘Ghana National Family Planning Progress report – April 1971’, table IV, PRAAD, Koforidua, ERG 5/1/41.

139 ‘Family planning within and beyond maternal and child health’, p. 3, RAC, Population Council collection, box 234, folder 2176.

140 Barnor, A socio-medical adventure in Ghana, p. 282.

141 ‘Recent development in population and family planning in Ghana’, 15 Aug. 1969, p. 2, RAC, Population Council collection, box 76.

142 Ferguson, Anti-politics machine, p. 255.

143 ‘Site visit to Korle Bu Hospital, Accra’, June 1970, p. 4, RAC, Population Council collection, box 581, folder 5630.

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146 Ahlberg, Women, sexuality, and the changing social order, p. 191.

147 ‘Letter from R H O Bannerman chief medical officer for education and family health, WHO to Dr Boi-Doku’, 7 Dec. 1970, WHO, P13/372/9.

148 Scott, Seeing like a state, p. 183.

149 The UN reported in the 1980s that, although Ghana had been one of the first nations to roll out a national programme, its effects had barely been felt. See Askew, Ian, Maggwa, Ndugga, and Obare, Francis, ‘Fertility transitions in Ghana and Kenya: trends, determinants, and implications for policy and programs’, Population and Development Review, 43 (2016), pp. 289–307, at p. 290CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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151 ‘Ghana National Family Planning Programme progress report July 1971–June 1972’, table I, RAC, Ford Foundation collection, grant #007168, reel 4048.