Review of the Population Program: 1986-2002

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the population program soon added another subprogram loosely called population and development (POPDEV). One of the seminal ideas towards this broadening of the scope of the program came as one of the primary recommendation SCRPPP (1978) which states that “the Philippine Population Program should be designed on a broader scale and be fully integrated in the national development plans of the country.” In contrast to the reproductive health / family planning subprogram, the POPDEV subprogram has not been subjected to strong undercurrents. The only profound influence that required drastic overhaul of the subprogram thrusts is the devolution process as mandated by the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991. We use this to structure the presentation of the evolution of the subprogram. Pre-Devolution According the 1989-1993 Directional Plan, the main objective of the integrated population and development subprogram is “to support the national government in improving its efforts in achieving consistency of plans, policies and programs by systematically incorporating population concerns into the wider spectrum of development efforts.” The population and development (POPDEV) subprogram focused on three activities, namely: institutional capability building, advocacy and innovative approaches (POPCOM 1992). Institutional capacity building revolved around the formulation of mechanisms for institutionalizing the integration of population concerns in national, regional and sectoral policies, plans, and programs. The strategies were: (i) to train planners and program managers of concerned agencies with knowledge and skills on POPDEV integration; and (ii) development of the POPDEV framework and data for use in various stages of planning. The advocacy activities include POPDEV orientation sessions for program influentials; public relations projects; provision of information services to population and development professionals, policy makers, and influentials; development, production, and packaging of multimedia materials on population and development topics. During this period, the innovative approaches included incorporating POPDEV concepts on the DENR’s social forestry program; DSWD’s program for children; DA’s training for extension workers; and women projects in selected local government units. While POPCOM was mandated as the lead agency of this subprogram, the capability building was focused on the NEDA, the planning agency. This not surprising since the vehicle identified for POPDEV integration was the economic policy and planning process, which was the main mandate of NEDA. Up until 1992, from the POPCOM point of view, POPDEV “remains to be a concept which needed to be operationalized and translated into program initiatives” (POPCOM 1992). This assessment is not surprising given that POPCOM was mainly a family planning program implementor until 1988.


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