POPULATION ADVISOR PROJECT MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH ...

Much has been written about the importance of privatL
enterprise in health and family planning. Family Planning
Associations have been known to enhance the credibility of family
planning in Africa by working with voluntary organizations and
governments. Therefore given such structural problems in Chad's
health care system as inadequate trained personnel, inadequate
resources, insufficient service delivery clinics, policy
bottlenecks, and so forth, it is worth encouraging the development
of a Chadian Family Planning Association as an alternative to
family planning service delivery in the public sector.
Family planning services constitute a preventive demand
curative-oriented health services delivery systems and it
possible (as already
on
is
seen in Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya,
Mauritius and Zimbabwe) that the ill patients will take priority
and family planning cases will be pushed into the background.
Therefore, it was foreseen from the beginning of the project that
a public sector alternative should be encouraged and developed
through an IPPF affiliate in Chad to help prevent a potential
bottleneck in service delivery once the demand for family planning
is tapped.
Lastly, by becoming an IPPF affiliate and joining the family
planning movement in Africa and the world, Chad can legitimize its
effort to provide credibility and resources towards the promotion
of its population's well-being.
VI. First International Family PlanninQ Conference in Chad, October
15-21, 1988 N'Diamena
A. Background
In mid-1987 USAID received $70,000 to sponsor two seminars in
N'Djamena through a buy-in to the Options Project. There was to
be 1) a Symposium on Law and Population and 2) an International
Seminar on Family Health and Child Spacing. The Symposium on Law
and Population was planned to follow submission of the new draft
replacing Chad's Pharmacy Law of 1965. Due to unforseen delays in
the process of drafting the replacement legislation, the Director
General of the MOPH recommended combining both seminars into one.
B. Institutionalizing the Conference Planning Process
During 1987 a large number of Chadians representing different
sectors of the government and religious institutions were trained
in family planning and shared a general perspective regarding its
effectiveness and benefits to Chadian society. A somewhat
educated/informed constituency was in the process of developing and
the momentum was building up in anticipation of a first
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