Family planning perspectives.

The ideas presented here are not necessarily new but neither are they sufficiently widespread in family planning circles to have had much impact in overcoming the problems of administration.

Abstract

Official family planning programs around the world continue to experience problems of administration. Despite solutions or preventive measures for dealing with many of these problems the difficulties persist. This is possibly because of inadequate intercountry communication among professionals or inadequate or insufficient training to deal with problems unique to family planning program administration. A major obstacle may be the natural biases which administrators and field workers have brought to their new jobs. It is likely that the problems of administering family planning programs arise out of a combination of these and other factors. The ideas presented here are not necessarily new but neither are they sufficiently widespread in family planning circles to have had much impact in overcoming the problems of administration. Realistic balances concern the tendency in the late 1970s to focus development efforts on rural areas. Family planners should guard against any inclination to focus solely on the rural areas to the neglect of the urban areas. In determining priorities between rural and urban requirements for population services it needs to be kept in mind that human reproduction is the primary cause of urban growth in most developing countries. An essential component of an overall strategic approach to family planning an approach that emerged from the Family Planning in the 1980s Conference is to develop workable techniques for identifying local peoples needs problems and preferences and incorporate this information directly in the design and operation of programs and into the evaluation of their effectiveness. Involvement of an educator is required at the outset of the program planning process in order for the program to be designed on the basis of education/communication principles. Lack of coordination wastes valuable time and resources. Traditionally family planning efforts have concentrated on high parity women at the expense of low parity or nulliparous women at risk of pregnancy. Another important group is newlywed couples. Attention has been directed to newlyweds in a few developing and developed countries. Approaches to this key group have varied. The educator when working to increase awareness of family planning issues must realize that the individual learner is much less interested in the cumulative effects of family size than in issues more immediately relevant to each person.