The main aim of this is book is to document the history of family planning movements at a national level, giving examples from 23 developing countries. In addition to recording this important movement, it provides lessons for newcomers or development practitioners from other fields. The 23 case studies presented in this book, all of which come from developing countries, represent the earliest national programmes for family planning. The editors are successful in their selection of contributing authors, who bring expertise in different fields including gynaecology and obstetrics, economy, epidemiology, demography and others and who have actively participated in implementing national programmes in the countries reported in this book.
What is so intriguing about this book is the diversity of the contextual settings of reported countries, which brings unparalleled richness to the data provided in the book. Each case study covers the policy origin, programme structure, funding, obstacles faced, lessons learned and implications for other countries. This is complemented with summary notes at the end of each case study. The book is written in simple and easy language, making it accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike.
The book highlights that the family planning movement came about as a result of two important movements: (a) the birth control movement, focused mainly on empowering women over their own bodies against undesired pregnancies and (b) the population control movement, concerned with the imbalance between population growth and the available resources. Population control became more pertinent after the World War II, with worries over the impact on developing countries of high postwar population growth rates.
The book reminds readers that post World War II many new states were created. Each state started to increase its population size. It was soon realised that this was a national problem because of increased demands on available resources. Moreover, unwanted pregnancies led to high infant and maternal deaths, due to unsafe abortion compounded by women's fertility being at the highest end of the reproductive age group. As a result, these countries resorted to family planning policies to maintain public health.
The book alludes to several countries that were late in implementing family planning. In fact, they were already facing problems when they embarked on these policies. However, to their credit, most of these countries managed to cut their population growth rate, with varying degrees of success, in terms of balancing the country's resources with the population size. The book highlights very well the challenges faced by planners and policy makers in each case, making it easy to draw out common challenges and to differentiate them from country-specific ones. For example, maintaining an acceptable actual population growth rate seemed to be a common challenge. Root causes for these challenges varied. They can be classified broadly as cultural, religious, political and economic. The book provides good examples of such root causes and brings to the surface important issues to bear in mind when planning similar projects.
For example, cultural root causes pertain to common perceptions associated with large families such as social status, protective action of high fertility against high mortality, etc. Moreover, conservative religious views were the main challenge in some countries. For instance, the Catholic Church in Latin America and Francophone Africa slowed programme implementation. Also, there was opposition to sterilisation and family planning in some Muslim countries. Some countries, such as Egypt, sought help from the highest religious authority in the country to issue a ruling (fatwa) to facilitate implementing the programme, renaming it as birth spacing.