Exploring the integrated approach
Asian-PacificPopulationProgrammeNews 8(2): 15
1979
ISSN/ISBN: 0125-6718 PMID: 12309576 Document Number: 442747
The integration of family planning with maternal and child health and nutrition has been implemented in India, but integration with developmental activities like community development involves the linking up of several different disciplines. Current trends of the integrated approach to family planning in the ESCAP countries are discussed by administrators from Bangkok, Manilla, Bangalore, Islamabad, and Trivandrum, India. IPPF experience in the nongovernmental sector found that to succeed, projects must be clearly described, realistic, and capable of evaluation. Development programs can be integrated with family planning programs as well as family planning/population education programs can be integrated with development projects. Possible areas of integration are income-generating skills/services; training programs; nutrition and health (home extension services); environmental sanitation and personal hygiene; water supply, tube wells; water management, conservation; and, utilization of agricultural by-products. The message of family planning can be effectively communciated through community organizations. In the Philippines, services which could be transferred to the field were transferred to volunteers in the barangays (neighborhoods) who worked on other projects, e.g. cooperatives, nutrition. All forum participants agreed that integration is a very good concept, but practising it is a complex reality.