Ho, Feb. 9, GNA - The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has chosen Volta Region as the ideal destination to commence a three-year project this year towards the promotion of socio-cultural and reproductive health issues.

The choice of the region stemmed from its uniqueness in terms of the heterogeneous nature of the area hosting almost all the tribes in Ghana as well as the challenges it faces in tackling some socio-cultural practices.

This came to light on Thursday when a high-level team of UNFPA from 15 West African countries, Mauritania and New York currently in Ghana for a Cluster Meeting visited the Volta Region to acquaint itself with issues on the ground for effective implementation of the project. Mr Makane Kane, UNFPA Representative in Ghana, who led the team, said over the years activities of the Fund had concentrated in the Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Central Regions through reproductive health programmes and other population related activities. He said the UNFPA's resource assistance was based on partnership with interested communities after the identification of their socio-cultural and reproductive health needs and how they could be addressed.

Mr Kane said the ongoing meeting in Accra hoped to identify a variety of actions, which would be implemented by the UNFPA in the various project locations throughout the year. He said a major aim was to draw lessons from countries within the sub-region and look for ways that would help to better address population issues.

Making a presentation on the sexual and reproductive health situation in the region, Ms Esther Agusta Doe, Regional Public Health Nursing Officer, said with prevalence HIV/AIDS rate of 2.7 per cent, the Volta Region had only one Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) centre. Ms Doe said 65 maternal deaths were recorded last year with maternal mortality rate being 200 per 100,000 live births. She said malaria ranked number one followed by hypertension and Acute Respiratory Infections in the topmost Out Patient Department (OPD) morbidity in the region.

Ms Lena Alai, Director of Women Division at the Ministry of Women's Affairs in the region, touched on gender issues and said certain inimical cultural practices such as trokosi, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and widowhood rites were still prevalent.

She said as far as cultural practices were concerned, each traditional area was autonomous, hence it required continued education on the part of stakeholders to achieve meaningful results. 9 Feb. 07