The impact of franchised family planning clinics in poor urban areas of Pakistan

This study uses a quasi-experimental design to determine the impact of new family planning clinics on knowledge, contraceptive use, and unmet need for family planning among married women in poor urban areas of six secondary cities of Pakistan. Baseline (n = 5,338) and endline (n = 5,502) population surveys were conducted during 1999-2000 and 2001-02 in four study sites and two control sites. Exit interviews with clients identified the sociodemographic and geographic characteristics of clinic users. The results show that the clinics contributed to a 5 percent increase in overall knowledge of family planning methods and an increase in knowledge of female sterilization and the IUD of 15 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Distinct effects were found on contraceptive uptake, including an 8 percent increase in female sterilization and a 7 percent decline in condom use. Unmet need for family planning declined in two sites, whereas impacts on the other sites were variable. Although the new clinics are located within poor urban communities, users of the services were not the urban poor, but rather were select subgroups of the local population.
Pakistan's family planning program has achieved meager success over the past four decades, despite Pakistan's being one of the first countries in South Asia to make a commitment to fertility [...]