USAID not pulling out

USAID is not withdrawing its support to family planning activities in the Philippines.

USAID, after providing major assistance to the health and family planning programs of the country for 36 years, is gradually veering away from contraceptive procurement assistance and helping bolster the country’s self-reliance in health and family planning.

This declaration is from Carina Stover, chief, Office of Population, Health and Nutrition of USAID. Now organization’s worry about the foreign agency’s withdrawing support for the country’s planning program can be put to rest.

According to Ms. Stover, in cooperation with the Philippine government, the USAID Strategy for 2002-2006 called "Towards Contraceptive Self-Reliance in the Philippines" provides for the gradual reduction of the agency’s contraceptive supply assistance, develop a market segmentation scheme where the reduced contraceptive provisions will be used solely for the family planning needs of poor clients who cannot afford to buy their own contraceptives, and a capability-building effort where private facilities and resources will be tapped to meet the contraceptive demand of the better-off segments of the population.

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One can appreciate USAID’s helping in the country’s family planning program in the light of population figures that should cause alarm if Filipinos’ reproductive instincts are left unchecked. Here are figures presented by Ms. Stover.

• The population of over 80 million will double in 30 years at the current growth rate of 2.36 percent.

• On the other hand, rice production in 2002 grew by an average of only 1.9 percent – which means more hungry people competing for a decreasing volume of rice.

• The Philippine government has emphasized only "natural" methods of family planning or the BBBB (birth spacing through Billings, Basal Temperature and Body signs).

• The Department of Health’s approved 2003 budget is only P10.68 billion – 1.25 percent share of the total budget.

• It is the poorest Filipinos (57.1 percent) who are not using family planning because of poor access and ineffective outreach.

• Only 20.5 percent of married women say they need family planning but are not using any method.

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USAID has extended an average of $17-million (or more than P850-million) a year in assistance to the Philippine family planning program. Around 18 percent of this amount has been for contraceptives. Over the past 11 years, the agency has donated around $40 million (or more than P2 billion) worth of contraceptives, accounting for over 80 percent of the country’s supply.

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The Philippine government has already exerted efforts towards contraceptives self-reliance beginning in 1999, when it launched the Contraceptive Independent Initiative (later known as the Contraceptive Interdependence Initiative or CIII). In 2000. the Department of Health and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) adopted this CII framework. In September 2001, the DOH issued the Philippine National Planning Policy, which said the Philippine government would assume greater responsibility for the family planning program.

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The Family Planning Urban Poor Project is a DOH-initiated project involving 14 local government units including Pasig, which was launched with USAIDS Philippines’ Michael Yates and Ms. Stover as special guests. The Pasig and other LGUs project is aimed at bringing family planning services closer to the urban poor communities in Metro Manila.

The main clients of these units are couples who have "unmet needs in family planning." This means they have the number of children they want right now, but do not have the means to postpone or stop having children.

USAID’s strategy said Ms. Stover, is "to foster the provision of affordable quality family planning services and commodities" and "within the context of an increasing population and increasing the country’s prevalence rate."

Ms. Stover emphasized the strategy’s aim to shifting the burden of providing free services to all, stimulating greater participation by the private and commercial sector to market and sell family planning commodities (like reproductive pills) and services, and providing "more access and choices for low-cost quality family planning methods."

As to whether women belonging to the Classes C and D2 can afford to buy their own contraceptives, Ms. Stovers’ figures showed that as of 1998, 3.23 million women of reproductive ages (15 to 49 years old) were using effective family planning methods, and that 2.49 percent of them availed of family planning services in the public sector.

Classes C and D2 can actually afford to buy their own contraceptives, said Ms. Stover, "Government ’s scarce resources should be concentrated on those who cannot pay and who need contraceptives most."

In fact, families which spend on cigarettes and alcohol can very well afford to buy a pack of pills.

She also spoke about expanding and assessing financing schemes, such as PhilHealth, facilitating the growth of social acceptance and demand for family planning, and supporting sustained advocacy efforts targeted to policymakers, the private sector, and other key stakeholders."

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