Strategy & Action
THAT the population time bomb is relentlessly ticking in Nepal is a fact of
our national life. Population growth rate outpacing the developmental
achievements—i.e. what little we have been able to notch up—is a real concern.
Nepal has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest growth rates in Asia. What
this means to a country that is somewhere at the bottom of the list of the developing
countries in terms of per capita income needs no amplification here. In a country where a
majority of the population does not have enough to eat, more mouths to feed are added
every day at an inexorable rate. The available resources are simply not sufficient to give
the new-born a life that can avoid deprivation. Population growth control being the
important necessity that it is, family planning services are recognised as one of the most
essential services that the Nepalese should have access to. Very many programmes have been
chalked out over the decades ever since FP service in Nepal started in the early 60s. The
five-year plan documents clearly spell out the importance of promoting FP if Nepal’s
development endeavours are not to be neutralised by the burgeoning population.
Family Planning Association of Nepal (FPAN) has been a key player in the
scheme of the country’s family planning promotion. It runs its own programmes, as
complementary to governmental agencies’ FP efforts. Of course, over the past decades,
the association has been a prominent FP service-provider. But it would be incorrect to say
that it has fully lived up to the role expected of it. Indeed, it has been found wanting
in meeting the targets that it has set for itself. A cursory look at its past plans and
programmes and the fulfilment of objectives unmistakably confirm that. FPAN’s
newly-elected executive committee announced on Monday that a five-year 2001-2005 strategic
plan has been formulated that contours the path for the association to take in the days
ahead in a whole gamut of FP areas. What the new office-bearers have to bear in mind is
that a strategy per se is not enough; what activities are thought of and how they are
going to be implemented are equally important. They only have to look at the previous
end-of-the-century strategy to see how many of the targets contained therein remain unmet
in absence of intensive execution of follow-up programmes. The association’s past
experience should provide lessons for them to think of concrete actions that ensure that
the new strategic plan’s objectives will not be found unfilled, come 2005.
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