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Executive Summary
The 1994 POPCOM Institutional Assessment revealed
the strengths and weaknesses of POPCOM's population policy
framework as well as its organizational structure. Through
25 years of POPCOM's existence, the population policy framework
has developed from one merely focused on fertility reduction
to a growing recognition of the need to broaden its perspective
and respond to the inextricably linked concerns of population
and sustainable development. Organizationally, however, POPCOM
was slow to mainstream its framework's broadened concerns
principally because it was constrained by technical capability
and resources. While there is internal appreciation of the
crucial interrelationships between and among population, development,
environment and gender as a framework-related issue, the institution
recognizes that this appreciation needs to go beyond the cognitive
level to operational application.
Despite the identification of gender-related issues within
the institution, generally, POPCOM personnel are still gender-blinded
in viewing population concerns and their links to prevailing
socio-economic conditions. There is still a preoccupation
with the achievement of set demographic targets mainly because
population policy thrusts remain singularly focused on family
planning. The understanding of reproductive health is, to
a great degree, equate with maternal health and child survival
and family planning.
Other factors which have affected the course of POPCOM's work
include changes in government and institutional leadership,
the 1992 Local Government Code, developments in the global
arena in the areas of population, development, gender-related
issues and reproductive health. The transfer of the government's
family planning program from POPCOM to the Department of Health
(DOH) and the subsequent attachment of POPCOM to the National
Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) was a concrete response
to the broadened concerns of POPCOM as an institution.
The challenge now for POPCOM is to bridge the gap between
its broadened framework and the institution's ability and
capacity to implement this framework. Concretely, a gender-responsive
population policy framework with a reproductive health perspective
needs to be enforced. POPCOM personnel need to be trained
and equipped to implement the mandate of the institution. |
