RI to send birth control experts to other developing countries
RI to send birth control experts to other developing countries
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia will sell its experience in family
planning abroad, State Minister of Population/Chairman of the
National Family Planning Board Haryono Suyono said yesterday.
He said Indonesia planned to send its experts to other
developing countries to help them promote family planning and
exchange knowledge on population control.
Indonesia will start sending experts this year because of a
great demand from countries which have participated in family
planning training in Indonesia, he said after opening an
international course on family planning.
Countries which have asked Indonesia for family planning
training include Vietnam, Cambodia, Tanzania and Ethiopia, he
said.
Haryono said the planned overseas training program would be
the first. So far, training and internships for family planning
professionals from other developing countries have been held
here.
Indonesia was becoming a popular place for other developing
countries to learn family planning, Haryono said.
"The most common request is training for a group of people
from the same region, such as hospital officials or village
chiefs. Later they can practice, together, what they have learned
here.
"It has proven to be effective, in Bangladesh for example,"
Haryono commented, adding that such training was getting more
difficult to provide because an ever-increasing budget was
required.
Indonesia has received international acclaim for its success
in curbing its population growth. It has limited the population
growth rate to between 1.2 and 1.6 percent per annum, with the
average number of children per family now between two and three.
In many other developing countries, population continues to grow
by four percent or more with the number of children around six to
seven per family.
Two teams of Indonesian family planning experts will visit
Iran and Turkey late of this month and other teams will go to
Zimbabwe and Tunisia in April, to see how those countries manage
their programs.
"By learning from other countries, we will be ready to give
answers and examples in training courses that we organize," said
Haryono.
The ongoing training program has 34 participants from
countries including Bhutan, Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India,
Laos, Maldives, Morocco, Myanmar, the Philippines and
Tanzania.(als)