'Reproductive health needs to be brought centrestage'

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, JAN. 13. The major thrust of the family welfare programme in India is moving away from family planning to reproductive health. Yet, there might be a need to reach out to influential leaders and opinion makers to bring reproductive health issue centrestage, says the new India-Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Mr. Francois M. Farah.

Talking to The Hindu after taking charge, Lebanon-born Mr. Farah said this was a good time to be in India because a lot of things were happening in the population sector. The setting up of the National Population Commission chaired by the Prime Minister, for instance, bespoke of the political commitment to the issue, ``because population is an issue for India''.

Mr. Farah who was UNFPA representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan from April 1998 to October 1999, said India was the longest programme of UNFPA with a five-year funding of $ 100 million from 1997. But what Mr. Farah is looking forward to is the mid-term review in a couple of months to evaluate how the UNFPA supported programme was faring on the ground.

The UNFPA carries forward the message of the International Conference on Population and Development at Cairo to make sure that reproductive health, information, counseling and services were available and were of quality. ``It is no longer a family planning programme. It is now taken as the need of an individual - a package aimed at development of individuals as full human beings''.

Mr. Farah sees a greater UNFPA role in India in terms of Information Education Communication (IEC), counseling and advocacy. Because of overall resource crunch, there has been a budgetary cut in the annual funds to India last year, but Mr. Farah indicated that the UNFPA was reaching out to donors and some European countries had shown interest.

Contraceptives

Asked about the controversy over injectable contraceptives and the move to introduce the Emergency Contraceptive for women in the health system, Mr. Farah said the Indian Government had chosen the `Cafeteria Approach' for giving more choices. Rejecting any method outright takes away decision- making from women.

``Every method of family planning may have side- effects, whether it is the pill or intra-uterine device and even the traditional condom. To the extent that side-effects have been documented, we have to ensure that we are informing the users and health service providers. Each method could be used best in different circumstances. To reject outright would be like throwing the baby with the bathwater.''

Mr. Farah said gender equality was crucial to the programme. You need to reach out to women to know their rights and to men to acknowledge them and share responsibility in reproductive health. ``Social development does not happen overnight. It is a process. If it does happen overnight, it cannot sustain.''

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