Culture and the management of family planning programs
Warwick, D.P.
Studies in Family Planning 19(1): 1-18
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0039-3665 PMID: 3284022 DOI: 10.2307/1966735Document Number: 321907
The paper explores some links between culture and the management of family planning programmes. Integrating family planning programmes with local cultures can increase or undermine their effectiveness. Programme design and organization will be influenced by kinship and reproductive decision making, which varies across regions, racial and communal divisions, and religions. Programme implementation depends on four aspects of culture: (1) the understanding, acceptance, and continued practice of family planning by clients, especially in rural areas; (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 programme, aimed primarily at individuals and rural communities, is a case in which these elements of culture are often positive. Other programmes, such as that in Kenya, have a more negative environment for action.