| Abstract: | This comparative study of the determinants of family planning policy initiation and implementation focuses on four pairs of countries: Zambia/Zimbabwe, Algeria/Tunisia, Pakistan/Bangladesh, and Philippines/Thailand. The conclusion is drawn that global efforts had an influence on national policy makers and on putting family planning issues on the policy agenda. Global impacts were affected by national economic and social conditions and the broader political and economic relations with Western countries. The absolute level of economic development was found to be unrelated to the timing of initiation of family planning on national policy agendas. Stronger national family planning programs occurred in countries where policy makers linked economic development at whatever level with the need to limit population growth. Pakistan and Thailand in the 1960s illustrated this commitment to family planning programs, and Zambia and Algeria illustrated the lack of connection between development and population growth at the policy level and the lack of family planning on the policy agenda. Affiliation with the West during the 1960s meant early initiation of family planning in Pakistan/Bangladesh and Philippines/Thailand. Stronger commitment to program implementation occurred only in Thailand during the 1970s and Zimbabwe during the 1980s. Commitment lessened in the Philippines and Pakistan. Program implementation and national support of family planning were viewed as also dependent upon domestic factors, such as sufficient resources. Algeria/Tunisia and Zambia/Zimbabwe were countries that promoted family planning only after national political ideology shifted and anti-imperialist sentiments subsided. The impact of the international Cairo conference on these countries was minimal in terms of policy change. Most of the countries however desired greater support from donors. Even objections from the Vatican and internal domestic pressures were insufficient to prevent countries such as the Philippines and Pakistan from supporting the Cairo Plan of Action and a family planning and reproductive health agenda. Bangladesh and Pakistan are given as examples of countries where differences in the focus of foreign aid impacted on the national support for social services. |
