ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the family planning programmes and discusses the extent to which their goals have or have not been achieved. Some patterns of contraceptive seeking behaviors indicate that family planning agencies have largely failed to conceptualize reproduction in its complex social and cultural dimensions and patterns. By focusing on married women only and emphasising technological options, family planning programmes ignored the changing sexual patterns and their impact on various social groups. The family planning model has therefore ignored women's social and economic disadvantages which often imply minimal control over matters of sex. Fertility regulation evolved through cultural systems delineating specific mechanisms and organizing sex and reproduction so as to produce a balance between population growth and level of socio-economic development. Regulation and control of fertility will require involvement of all social groups based on a clear understanding of the past and prevailing sexual and fertility patterns.
