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MEDIA CENTER The Future of Family Planning Programs: NEW YORK (26 April 2002) — By the middle of the twenty-first century, many of the most successful national family planning programs will almost certainly have disappeared, rendered obsolete by their very success, say the editors of a special edition of Studies in Family Planning, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Population Council. The journal’s March issue, edited by John C. Caldwell, James F. Phillips, and Barkat-e-Khuda, is based on selected papers by eminent experts who presented their research at a conference on family planning programs in the twenty-first century sponsored by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population in 2000. National family planning programs, which have been instrumental in accelerating global fertility decline, will probably go out of existence in most of the world's regions by 2050, say the editors, adding that “the future family planning frontier will be sub-Saharan Africa.” The success of future programs in Africa will depend largely upon stronger political leadership, donor-country assistance, and the development of programs that meet the needs of all segments of society, not only currently married women. The first birth control clinics opened in the United States and Britain in 1916 and 1921, respectively, and the first government family planning programs were implemented in the 1950s in India and Pakistan. By the 1980s, dozens of national family planning programs had been established throughout the world. Where they have been most successful, in places like Singapore and South Korea, they are already being phased out as fertility levels decline to replacement level. In such countries the demographic focus is increasingly on the aging of their populations. By the 1990s, three changes had begun to erode the position of some family planning programs. The first change was their own success. Coupled with socioeconomic change, the programs had reduced the rate of annual global population growth from more than 2 percent in the late 1960s (with a potential to be 3 percent by 2000) to 1.4 percent by the end of the twentieth century. The second change was a reduction in foreign aid contributed by the rich countries, while the third change was the increasing importance of the commercial sector in selling contraceptives. “Although family planning programs will tend to disappear, contraception will not,” the authors conclude, noting that with a future global population of perhaps ten billion, around 80 percent of those in a potentially reproductive sexual union will be practicing contraception, more than double the present absolute number. “An open-ended demand will be expressed for better contraceptive methods and, mostly from the private sector, for the best practice in reproductive health care,” they say. John C. Caldwell is Emeritus Professor of Demography, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra. James F. Phillips is Senior Associate, Research Division, Population Council; Barkat-e-Khuda is Associate Director and Head, Policy and Planning, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. Articles, Vol. 33, No. 1, March 2002 Introduction: The Future of Family Planning Programs, by John C. Caldwell, James F. Phillips, and Barkat-e-Khuda United Nations Population Conferences: Shaping the Policy Agenda for the Twenty-first Century, by Jason L. Finkle and C. Alison McIntosh Future Trends in Contraceptive Prevalence and Method Mix in the Developing World, by John Bongaarts and Elof Johansson Policy Implications of the Next World Demographic Transition, by Sarah F. Harbison and Warren C. Robinson Transforming Family Planning Services in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, by Judith F. Helzner Facilitating Large-scale Transitions to Quality of Care: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, by Ruth Simmons, Joseph Brown, and Margarita Díaz Africa: The New Family Planning Frontier, by John C. Caldwell and Pat Caldwell Reconsidering the Doorstep-delivery System in the Bangladesh Family Planning Program, by Mary Arends-Kuenning China's Family Planning Policy: An Overview of Its Past and Future, by Isabelle Attané Asia's Family Planning Programs as Low Fertility Is Attained, by Gavin Jones and Richard Leete For subscription information on Studies in Family Planning, call 212-339-0514, fax 212-755-6052, or email publications@popcouncil.org.
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