Three Years of Pakistan’s New National Family-Planning Programme

Seventeen years ago (1952) the first organized family-planning programmes were started in Pakistan by the Family Planning Tanning Association of Pakistan. Since that time family planning has passed through three distinct phases, and it is now in a fourth phase. Phase I was marked by the unofficial activities of voluntary organizations such as the Family Planning Association. In Phase II, the begin¬ning of an official policy was made with the “cautious approval” and limited funding of such activities by the government in the First Five-Year Plan (1955-1960). Official policy was crystallized in Phase III with the writing of the Second Five-Year Plan (1960-1965) in which a specific allocation was made for family planning and the responsibilities for operating such a programme assigned to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Welfare, Health Division [21 ; 22].