Family Planning in Asia and the Pacific Addressing the Challenges

Abstract

This assessment is being carried out at a critical time in Pakistan’s history. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution calls for all programs, including health and population, to be the sole responsibility of the provinces and, therefore, the Ministry of Population Welfare (MoPW) will not exist beyond December 1, 2010. While the Ministry of Population Welfare has been carrying the responsibility of providing family planning services for over four decades, the drastic change will be that the sole responsibility will now rest with the provincial departments of health to provide services. There will be huge challenges as this takes place because the provinces are cash strapped and have not made provisions for providing family planning services so suddenly. Services are likely to be further disrupted when the responsibilities of the federal Ministry of Health are also shifted to the provincial level in 2011. This paper is mainly a review of the status of family planning and the efforts to promote contraceptive use through the Population Program, and the supporting roles of other sectors and players. Both analysis of secondary data, primarily taken from fertility surveys conducted over the last two decades, as well as primary data collection, through interviews with key stakeholders, inform the discussion in this paper. While discussing the past and present, the paper will point out areas that need corrective action or need to be abolished, as well as others that have been overlooked and need urgently to be brought into the program’s fold.