## DEVELOPMENT OF THE ZIMBABWE FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAM

# 1. INTRODUCTION

Zimbabwe lies in the south eastern part of sub-Saharan Africa between the equator and the tropic of Capricorn. It is a fairly small country with a total area of about 391 thousand square kilometers and an estimated popu:ation of 10 million in 1990. The country's population growth rate is estimated to be around 3 percent per annum.<sup>1</sup> Because of current and recent high fertility, low and still declining mortality, Zimbabwe has a youthful population with over 50 percent of the population being under the age of sixteen years.

Traditionally, Zimbabv:eans are pronatalistic with a preference for male children. In the past, many children were important for social prestige, cheap labour in the home and fields, and to compensate for the high infant and childhood mortality. However, despite these pronatalistic tendencies, pre-industrial Zimbabweans practiced family planning primarily for spacing births. Thus, family planning or child spacing is not a new concept in Zimbabwe. Traditionally women spaced their children and birth intervals of eighteen to thirty-six months were the norm. Mothers who got pregnant too early were usually castigated by society. Various traditional family planning methods and practices were used for spacing births. These included breastfeeding for period of up to twenty-four months, postnatal abstinence for long periods, polygamy, coitus interruptus and the use of medicinal herbs.

With urbanization, the situation has now changed, most traditional practices are no longer followed. The demand for efficient modern methods of family planning is high.

Provision of modern family planning information and services was introduced in the country in 1953 when individual volunteers started to work in white communities of the major urban areas. The first family planning clinic for whites was opened by the Salisbury volunteers in Waterfalls on a white suburb just outside Harare. In 1965 the various voluntary groups in the country amalgamated to form the Family Planning Association of Rhodesia which was registered as a welfare organization and affiliated to International Planned Parenthood Federation.

One of the white volunteers Paddy Spilhaus introduced Family Planning services among the black communities of Harare. In 1959 the Ministry of Health allowed her and a few nurses to operate a family planning clinic at Harare Central Hospital outpatients department. She also provided services to communities around the city of Harare through mobile clinics. Following the 1961/62 national census which put the annual rate of increase of the black population at _3.5_ percent, the Government became more interested in the activities of the F&anily Planning Association. In 1967, the Ministry of Health donated a piece of land to Paddy Spilhaus who built a family planning clinic using her own money. Today this clinic has grown to house ZNFPC's headquarters as well.

# 2. HISTORY OF THE ZIMBABWE FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMME

The Secretary of Health became a member of the Board of Directors of the Association, the government gave a small grant annually to the Association, and from 1967 the Ministry of Health allowed contraceptives to be made available at all government health institutions.

## 'Central Statistical Office of Zimbabwe