Once hailed as an unparalleled success story at a time the world struggled with the challenge of rapid population growth, Indonesia’s Family Planning program is now regarded as lethargic, if not dead in the water. A younger generation of administrators is taking a critical look at the efforts to revive New Order style activities in villages and districts. At the peak of the bureaucratic hierarchy new policies and legal interventions have left the organogram with empty boxes and confusing procedures to ‘bid’ for senior appointments.

On a report titled Revitalising the Family Planning Program, Terry Hull and Henry Mosley outline some key recommendations on the program related to fertility stall, contraceptive prevalence rate stalling, contraceptive mix narrowing and need to integrate BKKBN with MOH in both logistical and service delivery. Evidence that DHS surveys had overstated fertility rates was ignored by bureaucrats who wanted to justify continued high budgets for BKKBN. The fertility rates were actually falling while the proposal to integrate advocacy and services was resisted on all sides.

Terry Hull is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Demography, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He was President of the Asian Population Association for the period 2013-2015 and from 2015-2018 serves on the APA Council as the Immediate Past President. Since 2001 he has been on the International Steering Committee of the Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. Before retirement in 2013 he was Professor of Demography in the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute (ADSRI — now the School of Demography) and Adjunct Professor of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH). In the latter position, he held the JC Caldwell Chair in Population, Health and Development.