50 babies born each day, 18,000 a year in Solomon Islands

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It has been revealed that on average 50 new babies are born each day and about 18,000 per year across the Solomon Islands.

These astounding numbers were disclosed by the ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs during the recent Members of Parliament’s Introduction and Induction programme in Honiara recently.

And the Permanent Secretary of MWYCFA  Dr. Cedrick Alependava further confirms to SBMOnline today.

He said the figures are true—stating that on average on a daily basis 50 new babies are born, 1,500 a month and 18,000 a year.

Dr Alependava also points out that teenage pregnancy has also increased which contributes to the increasing numbers.

As the ministry responsible for young people, he states that youths are those ranging from 15 to 35 years and they make up of 70 percent of the country’s population which equals to around 500,000 of the more than 700,000 people recorded in the 2019 census.

He acknowledges that the biggest challenge for his ministry is to deal with high numbers of unemployment and the many other challenges youths face.

Dr Alependava also states that budget constraint remains a big obstacle as there’s always insufficient resources allocated to his ministry to deal with a huge population of young people across the country.

He confirms that for the first there is now an allocation of $1.5m for all the nine provinces for youth programmes including the establishment of youth centres.

The PS stresses that the most effective way to addressing the youth challenges is by multisectoral approach.

Meanwhile Dr Alependava hopes that by bringing the youths agenda to the attention of the politicians (recent MPs induction programme) would help his ministry to address the challenges.