USAID Will Graduate Indonesia Family Planning Program
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| Source: USAID Indonesia Mission |
Jakarta, Indonesia - This year, after nearly four decades of support, USAID is graduating one of the most successful family planning (FP) programs in the developing world – that of Indonesia. USAID assistance for other health sector priorities, including maternal and neonatal health and child survival, will continue beyond graduation of population assistance.
The FP partnership among USAID, the Indonesian Government, and the country’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has stressed the importance both of access to high-quality FP services and of helping families make informed decisions on some of the most personal aspects of their lives. The success of Indonesia’s program in reaching its goals is best illustrated precisely by those who have benefited from the effort. Mr. Nawawi and Mrs. Meutia Soraya, living in Jakarta, are typical of many Indonesian couples who feel that FP has allowed them to take charge of their lives to the benefit of their children. According to Mrs. Meutia Soraya, she and her husband adopted FP because:
“we could manage the number of children that we wanted, in our case two, and we could raise them better than if we had more children, and save money to give them a good education. So, our decision to use family planning was for our children.”
Mr. Nawawi says he comes from a family of nine children, but he felt that he and his wife could ill afford to also have such a large family, especially living in an expensive city such as Jakarta. The couple’s decision to control family size is typical of many in their generation. In the 1970s, families often had six, seven, or more children; today, the average Indonesian family consists of around three children.
The decrease in family size has translated into healthier and better-educated children. In a developing country context, the single most important factor in the survival of young children is a mother’s ability to space out her births, and this is reflected in Indonesia. Infant mortality has undergone more than a fourfold decline, from 142 deaths per 1,000 birth live births in 1967 to 35 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000.
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| Source: USAID Indonesia Mission |
Many parents, like Mr. Nawawi and Mrs. Meutia Soraya, acknowledge that with smaller families they can better afford to send their children to school. Girls have been the particular beneficiaries of this. Millions more girls are now attending schools because their families can afford to send them, and the gap between male and female educational attainment has considerably been reduced.
For many years, USAID has collaborated with Indonesian faith-based organizations to help improve the provision of FP services. In a predominately Muslim country, the key to the overall success of the family FP has been the unwavering support of Muslim religious leaders since the early days of the program.
Dr. Sudibyo Markus is Chairman of the National Executive Board of Muhammadiyah, one of Indonesia’s largest and most influential Muslim organizations, with more than 30 million members. The organization encourages its members to consider birth spacing and limiting the number of children as ways to improve the lives of their families. With USAID assistance, Muhammadiyah has also provided FP services in its extensive system of hospitals and health clinics. Dr. Sudibyo explains:
"... in our religion we want all our Muslim families to live under the 'Family Welfare Program.' Basically, this article, or guideline, in our Ku’ran system helps us control the population of our families, so that we can reduce the economic burdens that happen when families have too many children. And I believe that family planning in Indonesia would not have succeeded without the support from religious organizations like Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama."
Attention to the health and well-being of Indonesian families has resulted in some significant demographic dividends. Indonesia’s total estimated population today is around 220 million people. Without its family planning program, the country’s population would likely have been nearly 280 million. This means that the world’s fourth most populous nation has 60 million fewer people today because of family planning.
Read more on USAID’s family planning work in Indonesia
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