UNFPA uses a three-pronged approach to create awareness about population issues. The first is public information, which is designed to keep the public and its leaders, in particular, informed about population trends and important developments. The second category is population education, through which population issues and their individual and societal implications are studied and discussed, in both formal and non-formal education. Ultimately, the aim of population education is to increase understanding of population issues and therefore, to improve an individual's ability to make informed choices. The third area is population communication. This refers to the mobilization of support for population-related activities, such as the creation of demand for family planning services.
Over the years, UNFPA has worked closely with national authorities, as well as NGOs, to develop national IEC activities. To date, the Fund has assisted more than 100 countries in developing and implementing IEC strategies and projects, providing a total of nearly US$340 million over the period 1969-1993.
Increasing awareness
At the time of the World Population Conference in 1974, representatives from many countries argued that the best form of contraception was economic development. The conventional wisdom at the time assumed that once developing economies improved, the "demographic transition" would be automatic. Many countries have since modified their assumptions. One reason for this turnaround in thinking was the intrusion of reality: no such automatic process took place. In addition, information campaigns launched by UNFPA, NGOs and other development agencies demonstrated that population and development programmes, working in tandem, can provide the key to lower fertility rates. In this task, the media played, and will continue to play, a paramount role. Although editors and writers have periodically rediscovered "population issues" over the last 25 years, they are still regarded as a "soft" topic. Nevertheless, the mass media are giving increased space to the connections linking population issues to environment and development concerns. One of the reasons for this is that the UNFPA annual The State of World Population report has received worldwide media attention. More than 1,000 publications around the world ran articles, features and editorials about the 1993 The State of World Population report, and 400 radio and television stations broadcast special programmes based on material from the report or interviews with population experts. Journalists and editors are becoming more sensitized to the subject of population growth and its relationship to the sustainable management of the planet.
Specialized coverage of population issues has also improved: a number of popular forums now exist through which population and family planning issues can be disseminated to a wider, non-specialized audience. The Fund's own monthly magazine Populi, with a readership estimated at more than 100,000 provides coverage of population and family planning issues to an international audience. Also, population issues are aired through the annual World Population Day, sponsored by UNFPA, which includes information and educational activities, including an international poster competition for schoolchildren. Recognizing that the media can either enhance or undermine public confidence in population programmes in general, and in family planning in particular, national and international population programmes are paying more attention to media needs for their converage of population issues. Although information on population has improved significantly over the past two decades, many countrywide programmes have had limited success in getting their message out to rural areas. Persuading the electronic media, especially radio, to increase programming on population issues is one of the tasks facing planners during this decade.
Radio, in fact, could be used far more effectively than it is. It has been estimated that there are more than 1.9 billion radios in the world, or one for every three people. Radio shows are relatively inexpensive to produce, compared with film or television, and radio does not require expensive hardware. Listening to the radio is convenient; people can listen while they work; it is entertaining; and radios are carried everywhere.
Sensitive television and radio programmes, which treat population and family planning topics in a no-nonsense fashion, can reach millions of people missed by the print media. Even the poorest, illiterate farmer can listen to a village radio set or watch television. India, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea were among the first countries to establish strong national family planning policies, and their government-owned radio and television stations have long been employed on behalf of their national population programmes. As early as 1964, in Seoul, radio, home visits and other media were used to tell 45,000 women about contraceptive supplies and services. In Colombia, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, special radio programmes increased family planning acceptance rates. Community-based local radio stations have also begun to proliferate in some regions. In Peru, for instance, community-operated radio stations offer listeners topical, relevant commentary and information on a host of subjects, including immunizations for children, reproductive health and family planning.
Television has been used increasingly for informing the public about population and family planning issues. Some 20 countries have launched their own television programmes, usually in the form of educational spots of mini-dramas, to promote reproductive health and family planning. Mexico's family planning soap opera is exported to the rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America.
Experience has shown that the most effective way to increase public awareness of population and health-related issues is to launch multimedia campaigns, employing television, radio, newspapers, magazines and specially prepared information booklets. A well-coordinated, comprehensive national strategy can reach millions of the uninformed.
Enhancing the role of communication in support of population programmes
The acceptance of population action plans is determined not only by the availability of services but also by the amount of interest in and demand for them. Population communication activities, such as promoting public support for census-taking operations, are essential ingredients of population programmes at both national and intercountry levels.
To ensure success, communication planners must conceive, design and carefully implement a whole range of activities. Communication strategies need to be feasible, culturally acceptable and financially viable, facilitating programme acceptance within a specified time-frame. In addition, the results of those strategies should be measurable.
Today, more is being done in IEC programmatic areas, such as providing counselling for users of family planning services; preventing STDs (including HIV/AIDS); creating awareness of the linkages between resource use and population dynamics; social marketing of contraceptives; addressing adolescent reproductive health; and using entertainment to foster awareness. Because Governments decide on the objectives of national-level population programmes, communication activities vary from country to country, depending on the priority attached to population policies. Many countries have adopted as a basic principle the right of parents to decide in a responsible manner the number and spacing of their children. In such countries, communication complements other programme activities to ensure the provision of information and the availability of family planning services. Well-directed communication campaigns also assist community workers in discharging their duties, enhancing the acceptance of clinic-based education programmes. In Egypt, for example, the state-controlled television network is running a highly successful series of family planning "mini-dramas". The scripts are well written and imaginative, and the characters are played by well-known actors and actresses. These mini-dramas run for up to 10 minutes and are so popular that a full 90 per cent of households surveyed after one year had seen the spots, could recall the characters and remembered the message. This communication campaign, among others, is one of the reasons why Egypt's contraceptive prevalence rate rose more than 10 percentage points in four years, one of the fastest rates of increase ever recorded. The country's contraceptive prevalence rate is now nearly 50 per cent and rising. A UNFPA grant made the initial production of this series possible.
Similar successes have been recorded in Mexico and Turkey. A Mexican television soap opera series is credited with bringing in thousands of women to family planning clinics. In Turkey, a special family planning programme aired weekly is watched by 55 per cent of all adult viewers. Television is also being used in Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania. In the United Republic of Tanzania, for instance, modern research techniques are being applied to ensure the relevance of content and to measure the programme's impact on viewer attitudes towards family planning.
Establishing population information centres and networks
Population information centres now exist in almost every country whereas, 25 years ago, only a handful operated. Some are small libraries supporting a demographic training or research unit within a ministry, a university or a specialized agency. Others focus on a specific sector and are designed to support, for example, population education in schools, family planning programmes or national statistical data management.
One of the most important developments in population information services is the growth of regional, subregional and international networks. These networks include the Association for Population/Family Planning Libraries and Information Centres (APLIC), with APLIC International being the first successful population information network servicing population libraries and information specialists. The United Nations Population Information Network (POPIN), established in 1979, has a membership of institutions engaged in population information activities around the world. One of the largest regional networks is operated by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which has provided national population information centres with technical assistance, training and equipment. A subregional network--POPIN ASEAN--has been set up for members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). In 1988, POPIN Africa was also launched. The Latin American Demographic Centre (CELADE), established in 1976, has set up a population documentation system, called DOCPAL, to help the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean collect, store, process and retrieve information on population. Another network, PROLAP, consisting of some 50 NGOs with an interest in population, is also operating in the region.
Educating people about population issues and family planning
Population issues affect all aspects of life and must be treated as an integral part of school education. Children who grow up with an understanding of population and development issues and who learn about the importance of family planning and receive proper sex education become more responsible and informed adults, able to play active roles in social change and community development.
There are four other reasons why school systems are important vehicles for population education. First, school systems reach the most children throughout any given country. Second, children who spend a number of years in school are likely to be the future leaders of their communities and countries. By virtue of their formal education, they will be in a better position to hold important private-sector and government jobs. Third, retaining girls in school longer has a direct bearing on how employable they become and on the eventual size of their families. In addition, when both boys and girls are exposed to population education through the school curriculum, their knowledge, attitudes and decisions regarding other population issues can be influenced as well. Fourth, teachers -- particularly those in rural areas -- are often recognized community leaders. Their attitudes towards population issues and their own fertility behaviour add another dimension to the effects of population education in schools.
Since its first tentative introduction into school systems in the 1960s and 1970s, population education has expanded rapidly. El Salvador, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand were among the first countries to introduce population education in their school curricula. Other areas quickly followed suit. By the mid-1980s, about 80 countries included population education in their schools. As of 1994, 100 countries were estimated to have such projects, with 41 in Africa, 26 in Asia and the Pacific, 13 in the Arab States, 19 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one interregional project.
UNFPA has expanded its activities in formal population education, providing assistance to 98 new and ongoing projects in all regions in 1993. These activities helped to initiate population education or consolidate its institutionalization in Benin, China, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo and Yemen, among others. Furthermore, successful projects begun in the early 1980s took advantage of educational reforms in Nigeria and Morocco to complete the integration of population concepts into the general curricula and textbooks intended for both primary and secondary schools.
Of course, the goals and content of population education differ among regions and countries. As a long-term policy goal, some countries aim at reducing the population growth rate. Others are concerned with improving family health and welfare, or with lowering the number of adolescent pregnancies. Some countries, such as the Dominican Republic and Fiji, have also developed HIV/AIDS education information in school projects and have improved their sex education materials. Not only can population education help achieve such ends, but the nature of these aims helps determine the selection of content and approaches to population education.
Now, more attention is being paid to family planning and to human sexuality, including gender issues, in the school systems of developing countries. Educating and empowering future mothers and fathers with decision-making information about contraception and smaller families will go a long way towards improving the quality of life for millions in the next century. The importance of educating girls was highlighted during the Education for All Summit of Nine High Population Countries held in New Delhi, India, in December 1993, and amplified in the Programme of Action of the ICPD. Noting that "the eradication of illiteracy is one of the prerequisites of human development" [para.11.6], the Programme of Action urges countries to take "steps to keep girls and adolescents in school" [para. 11.8]. Increasingly, too, it is recognized that access to education alone is not sufficient to improve women's status, or to have an important impact on fertility. The quality of education -- what girls learn and how they learn it - is a key factor in determining the eventual impact of education on behaviour patterns. The main contribution of population education is in its impact on the overall quality of education that girls receive. If population education is timely and relevant to their lives, it strikes a positive chord in both teachers and pupils.
Similarly, what boys learn about gender issues and how this influences their attitudes about women and the family is also vital to improving the status of women. In 1992, UNESCO compiles two books of examples of gender lessons from population education projects in Asia and Latin America. The results are being shared with developing countries around the world and serve as a basis for improving approaches to teaching about gender issues in the classroom.
Population education, although it is beginning to come of age in many countries, still needs to be institutionalized if it is to play its full role. Ways need to be found to ensure that population education continues to be a standard feature of both formal and non-formal educational systems. Key indicators that the institutionalization of population education programmes is under way are the following:
Attitudes towards early sexual activity and child-bearing vary from country to country, as do the social consequences depending on whether a young mother is married. In all cases, however, the negative health consequences of many adolescent pregnancies are compounded by poor or non-existent prenatal care. In addition, most teenage women who bear children face limited educational and job opportunities. With limited prospects for the future and a high degree of dependency, it is too easy for teenage mothers to fall into a cruel cycle of more pregnancies. Education can break this cycle. But the programmes must be developed and launched.
Single-motherhood is not the only adolescent reproductive health issue. In countries where early marriage is prevalent, UNFPA has encouraged recognition of the health consequences of early pregnancies. The Fund has also studied and publicized the efforts of some countries -- for example, Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines -- which have initiated educational activities for newly-wed couples, attempting to make this type of education more widespread.
Reproductive health services for young people have been slow to emerge and are often controversial where they have taken form. Nevertheless, some excellent programmes have been developed to meet the reproductive and health needs of young people. The Philippines has three centres especially designed for adolescents. Also, educational and clinic-based programmes in Antigua and Barbuda, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Montserrat, Nigeria and Peru focus on the needs of teenagers. The Adolescent Orientation Centres in Mexico City (CORA) and neighbouring areas go even further. Launched in 1978, these youth centres offer educational, medical, psychological and recreational activities for 11-19-year-olds. Family planning services, sex information and counselling are also available, and an outreach programme promotes the participation of young people in local community-development projects.
In Jamaica, the Women's Centre Programme for adolescent mothers displays an innovative participatory approach to meeting the health, education and family planning needs of young mothers. It was begun by the Jamaican Women's Bureau in an effort to permit the continued education of pregnant teenage girls (aged 12-16) who, because of social censure, had to withdraw from school. The programme has been a great success -- nearly every teenage drop-out has gone back to school, and less than 5 per cent of the girls became pregnant again before finishing their secondary education.
Recently, the Fund provided assistance to the Mexican Family Planning Federation to develop and refine a sex education course addressing five closely related topics: communication within the family; puberty and reproduction; ethics of sexuality and youth; prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs); and early pregnancy.
The major stumbling-block to furthering sex education in many areas of the world is the simple fact that policy makers, opinion leaders and parents are either unaware of the benefits or oblivious to the problems. Educating these groups must also be given more priority by national population programmes. To increase awareness of the support for population and family planning programmes, UNFPA has also supported projects outside the formal educational system. In Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, the Philippines and Senegal, to name a few, family life education has been integrated into the general educational programmes of national cooperatives, workers' unions and adult literacy courses. Such projects have now been launched in all regions where UNFPA is active.