Community participation in the Bangladesh health and family planning program: dissemination activities and lessons learned.

In Bangladesh community participation has been recognized as an important component of Health and Population Sector Program. This document presents a study of an outcome of different dissemination seminars of program managers and community leaders to explore views opinions and experiences of health and family planning (FP) program managers and community leaders. 12 seminars for program managers in six administrative divisions and five Upazila seminars for community leaders were organized. The number of participants in each seminar was between 80 and 100 and included government officials involved with the program training officials nongovernmental organization representatives and community leaders. The significance of community participation was well- understood and appreciated by all participants however numerous problems/shortcomings were cited and discussed. This paper…