Impact of Family Planning Clinic Provision on the Urban Poor in Pakistan.
Abstract
Family planning programmes are costly to implement, so it is critical to determine their effect. This study uses a quasi-experimental design to determine the impact of new family planning clinics on knowledge and unmet need for family planning, amongst married women in urban poor areas of six secondary cities of Pakistan. Baseline (n=5,338) and end-line (n=5,502) population surveys were conducted in four study sites and two control sites. Client exit interviews identified the sociodemographic and geographic characteristics of clinic users. The results show that the clinics contributed to a 5% increase in overall knowledge of family planning methods, and 15% increase in knowledge of female sterilisation and the IUD. Unmet need for family planning declined in the Punjab sites, while there were variable impacts on the sites in Sindh province. Although the new clinics are located within urban poor communities, users of the services are not the urban poor themselves but select subgroups of the local population.
Citation
Opportunities and Choices Working Paper No.14, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, 29 pp.
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