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.