Int'l family planning conference closes
KUTA, Bali (JP): The International Training Program for Family Planning/Reproductive Health closed here on Thursday with a call for participants to maintain a critical stance on their country's implementation of the program developed in Indonesia.
The conference's coordinator, Santoso Hamijoyo, said in his closing speech that Indonesia was in need of feedback from the participants to improve the training program, which has been running for 12 consecutive years.
"We recommend that all participants implement what they have learned here in their respective countries and closely monitor how it works," Santoso said, adding that their application of the program would serve as a form of self-assessment for Indonesia.
This year's training program was attended by 25 participants who represented 12 countries, and 45 representatives of donor institutions.
The figure raises the number of international trainees from the Indonesia program to 3,534 from 89 countries. The number includes 360 senior officials, presidents, prime ministers, ministers and ambassadors.
Indonesia has also sent family planning experts to give technical assistance to at least 17 countries in Asia, the Pacific region and Africa.
National Family Planning Board (BKKBN) official Santoso acknowledged that despite the international acclaim, the training program was pregnant with weaknesses.
As an example he said the program organizers provided participants with descriptive methodology, but had been unable to provide analysis in the five years since the program's inception.
Santoso also said the conference recommended that Indonesia observe the implementation of family planning programs in each participant's country.
"While other countries learn from us, we also have to learn from other countries' experiences in running their family planning programs."
Santoso said that during the one-week program, most participants acknowledged that Indonesia's experience and methods had become an important base of knowledge, which could be adopted to improve the family planning program in their countries.
Another BKKBN official, Pudjo Rahardjo, said that conference participants were able to improve their knowledge by sharing information about the different ways used by other countries to implement the family planning programs .
He said that adapting the Indonesian experience to the participating countries different cultural values was the clue to successful implementation of family planning programs in each country. (zen/04)