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)