Culture and the Management of Family Planning Programs

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Integrating family planning programs with local cultures can increase or undermine their effectiveness. Program design and organization will be influenced by kinship and reproductive decision-making, which varies across regions, racial and communal divisions, and religions. Program implementation depends on four aspects of culture: (1) the understanding, acceptance, and continued practice of family planning by clients; (2) the climate in the organizations responsible for fieldwork, which affects the disposition to work and the tasks to be done; (3) the ability and willingness of field implementers to do their work; and (4) the communities in which clients live, including collective attitudes toward family planning and local pressures put on clients to participate. The Indonesian family planning program is a case in which these elements of culture are often positive. Other programs, such as that in Kenya, have a more negative environment for action.This paper explores some links between culture and the management of family planning programs. A major change in family planning research since the 1960s has been the movement away from assertions about near-universal demand for fertility control and toward an understanding of national and local situations. In the 1960s, advocates of population control often claimed pervasive demand for family planning services in the developing countries. It was present across countries and cultures and, where not significant, likely to become so. It is now hard to find 1 leading scholar who argues that the demand for family planning is nearly universal across cultures. Integrating family planning programs with local cultures can increase or undermine their effectiveness. Program design and organization will be influenced by kinship and reproductive decision-making, which varies across regions, racial and communal divisions, and religions. Program implementation depends on 4 aspects of culture: 1) the understanding, acceptance, and continued practice of family planning by clients; 2) the climate in the organizations responsible for fieldwork, which affects the disposition to work and the tasks to be done; 3) the ability and willingness of field implementers to do their work; and 4) the communities in which clients live, including collective attitudes toward family planning and local pressures put on clients to participate. The Indonesian family planning program is a case in which these elements of culture are often positive. Other programs, such as that in Kenya, have a more negative environment for action.