The Indonesian Family Planning Programme: A Success Story for Women?

The Family Planning Programme of Indonesia is constantly being hailed as a success story for its performance in reducing fertility rates in many parts of the country. This paper examines what this apparent success has meant for women, taking women's rights to the control of their fertility as the necessary aim for all family planning programmes, and the safeguarding of their reproductive health as an obligation. In the paper, the aims and methods of the Family Planning Programme are examined separately, in order to assess on the one hand the extent and the manner in which women's interests are acknowledged in its objectives, and, on the other, whether in its implementation the programme takes into account the needs of women, both as recipients and as family planning workers. The main conclusion of the paper is that the priorities, style of implementation and service delivery of the programme do not provide women with the means of regulating their fertility autonomously through access to freely chosen contraceptives and related services. In addition, the paper concludes that the safeguard and improvement of women's reproductive health is not among the concerns of the programme, in principle or in practice.     

Population and poverty in dependent states: Latin America considered

"Malthusians maintain that rapid population growth aggravates poverty, while Marxists contend that social formations determine its nature and extent. Each perspective is incomplete, however, since it ignores the insights of the other. Latin American states, characterized by dependent capitalism formations and dominated by ruling elites, are generally incapable of solving the problems of population and poverty. Since population growth under dependent capitalism weakens labor's bargaining position against capital, reduced population growth is emphasized as a labor empowerment strategy the poor can implement on their own to improve their socioeconomic conditions."