WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

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ZHENG Z.
program “Care for Girls” has been carried out in 11 county/cities
where the SRB in 2000 was the highest, this could be seen as a way of
targeting the groups. On the other hand, the opinion and need of
target groups should also be identified to design specific interventions.
Up to date, no publication mentioned the needs assessment in a
standard way. None of the pilot programs has been assessed on the
impact yet.
The interventions, activities and programs that were not initiated
for the purpose of balancing the sex ratio at birth but likely to have a
significant contribution, can be classified into three categories: incentives,
advocacy, and legal/administrative management (Table 2).
Advocacy is necessary and somewhat effective but the target
population needs to be redefined and enlarged. Legal and administrative
management intervention may have an immediate effect but
needs to be reviewed and assessed from different perspectives.
Incentive programs and regulations should be strongly recommended
for achieving a long-term effect, and the implementation of social
security system is one of the important keys to solve the problem.
According to our field research, the imbalanced sex ratio at birth is
mainly a concern of the government, especially the central government,
the various actions to balance the abnormal SRB being directed
from top to bottom. There is a lack of participation of local residents
as well as non-governmental organizations. Any further successful
programs and activities targeting the high SRB need an active
involvement and full participation of local residents since they are
themselves the actors and agents who can bring the ratio back to
normal.
To develop an effective, feasible, and sustainable intervention
strategy, several key questions need to be considered carefully: (1) Is
the intervention targeted on the original cause of the problem or just
the appearance of it? (2) Is the approach feasible and sustainable? (3)
Is the target group well defined and focused? (4) Is the intervention
designed to achieve a long-term goal or just to change the situation
temporarily? (5) Who will be the coordinator as well as implementer,
monitor, and evaluator of the intervention?
foetuses, the sex ratio at birth could reach 118.4 (Kim, 2005), so the target group is
rather small.