Comparative study on family planning and birth spacing programmes in ECA member states

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to present a comparative analysis of family planning/birth spacing programmes in selected countries with organized programmes. Coverage is limited to the following countries: Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe. These countries were selected because there was adequate information on them. While more countries could have been included, it was felt that attention should focus on programmes which started before 1984 and for which relevant data was available. The source of data for this study is varied and includes survey reports, country reports presented at conferences as well as earlier studies carried out by the secretariat. This study was requested by the Joint Conference of African Planners, Statisticians and Demographers at its 7th session in 1992. The paper is organized into 4 sections. Section I is the introduction. Section II is an overview of socio-economic background of the countries selected for coverage. The comparative analysis based on a number of selected variables is presented in Section III. Summary and conclusion is in Section IV.