Family planning board to retain some functions

Family planning board to retain some functions

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a bid to keep its public services intact, the National
Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN) plans to retain two of
its main functions, with the others being delegated to local
administrations starting from December 2003.

The board's chairwoman, Yaumil C.A. Achir, said on Saturday
that the state agency would continue to provide the services of
its Directorate of Communications, Information and Education, and
its Directorate of Advocacy, which would allow it to continue to
perform its functions as a facilitator in the nationwide family
planning program.

Speaking during a discussion on family planning and
reproductive health during the current era of decentralization,
Youmil expressed concern over the possibility of the family
planning program being neglected in the future by local
administrations, which might be tempted to shift their focus to
more profitable policies.

"Hopefully, the prevailing opinion that local administrations
will only fight for budgets is not true ... if it is, then it
will worsen family planning and other social services.
Consequently, the quality of our human resources will decrease
and the efforts to alleviate poverty will become more difficult."

The discussion was sponsored by The Jakarta Post.

The government introduced a program, now known as the family
planning (KB) program, in 1979 aimed not only at controlling the
population growth rate but also putting greater emphasis on
improving the quality of family economic life and human
resources.

The program has drastically cut the size of an average
Indonesian family from 5.6 children 30 years ago to 2.79 children
today, although it has not been so successful in its objective of
improving public welfare as around 7.7 million families are still
living below the poverty line.

At least 95 countries, mainly developing countries, have also
initiated a similar program using Indonesia as a role model due
to its wide experience with birth control policies.

The family planning program has been confronted by persistent
challenges in the past due to the fact that people were forced to
use contraceptives without receiving sufficient information about
the devices' effects on their bodies and health.

Another speaker during the discussion, women's activist Sita
Aripunarmi, said regional autonomy, which will transfer most of
the BKKBN's duties to local governments, would encourage people
to voluntary participate in the family planning program.

"Each region is unique ... they have their own ways of
promoting the family planning program and it will be more
accepted by locals compared with a centralized, top-down
approach," she said.