Family planning propaganda outline, 1988

In 1988, the regional Family Planning (FP) Commission of Nei Monggol, China, issued a propaganda outline containing the following language: "In order to fulfill the three fighting targets put forward by the autonomous regional party committee, efforts should be made to accelerate the speed of developing the economy on the one hand and bring population growth under strict control on the other hand. It is necessary to further stabilize the existing policy on FP work and to continuously encourage one couple to have one child throughout their life. In allowing rural people to have a second birth, rural authorities must strictly enforce the measure, strictly ban second or more births outside the plan, and strictly prohibit people marrying too early and giving birth too early. Minority nationalities should also implement the FP policy in line with the demand of central authorities." The propaganda outline also urges Communist party members, CYL members, and cadres at all levels to actively respond to the party's call and be vanguards in FP work.

Decree No. 88-52 establishing a National Committee for Family Protection, 15 March 1988

Section 2 of this Decree, which repeals Algerian Decree No. 81-339 of 12 December 1981 setting up a National Advisory Council for the Protection of Mothers and Children, lays down that, within the framework of the implementation of the national demographic policy and national development plans, the National Committee for Family Protection is responsible for the following, in particular: 1) contributing to coordinating and promotional activities, and evaluating measures that have been decided upon; 2) on the basis of the objectives laid down by the government and proposed program activities in the sectors concerned, drawing up annual and multiannual programs aimed at controlling demographic growth; 3) proposing measures intended to ensure that, having regard to the objectives laid down, annual and multiannual programs for controlling demographic growth are consistent and harmonious; and 4) in order to draw up a report to the government, undertaking periodic evaluations of the implementation of sectoral programs aimed at controlling demographic growth.

Population planning program management: the role of health administration programs

An international survey of educators, program managers, and donors was undertaken to assess the current status of education for population planning (P/P) program management. Most respondents perceived a high level of need for management training in the population field. This perception was less likely to be held by health administration program directors, however, whose programs for the most part had only limited experience or interest in addressing this need. P/P program directors indicated that regional training institutes and the local P/P program itself were the most frequent source of management training, although the sample as a whole perceived that training to be of lower quality than what would be offered by U.S. and Canadian universities. The major improvement desired in such training related to the appropriateness and effectiveness of teaching methods and content. Planning, needs assessment, and goal setting was seen to be the area of greatest training need.

The avoidable costs of population

The social and economic consequences of current demographic trends in South Africa are analyzed using the concept of avoidable costs. The author presents projections of the population up to the year 2000 organized under four major categories: executive and managerial; professional; semi-skilled; and the unskilled, peasants, underemployed, and very poor. Comparisons are made with projections for the same four categories for Canada to show the problems faced by South Africa, in that relatively small growth in the first two classes is contrasted to massive growth in the other, and particularly the least privileged, classes. Consideration is given to the implications for the provision of schools and for the labor force. The author concludes that "if a problem is to be tackled at its roots it is to the control of human numbers that our attention is to be directed."

[Population policies and intervention on natality in Eastern Europe (Part 1)]

This is an overview of population policies and their underlying doctrines in Eastern European countries since World War II. The author describes three chronological stages: "an orthodox populationist stage, from 1945 to 1955...; a phase of liberalization of abortion and at times of contraception from 1955 to 1965; and from this latter date, as a reaction against the accelerated decline of fertility, a phase of abortion and divorce restriction and of growing aid to family, likewise [marked] by the creation of National Population Committees and Institutes of Demographic Research." The countries of Eastern Europe are divided into three classifications: those with no population policy (Albania only); those with indirect measures, including Poland, Yugoslavia, and the USSR; and those with explicit, quantitative demographic goals, including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, and Romania. The effectiveness of selected population policies is assessed. (SUMMARY IN ENG)