Family planning field workers in Bangladesh as influence agents: some policy implications.

The family planning program in Bangladesh is one of the country’s success stories. However, in the quest to gain cost efficiencies, there are suggestions to scale back the role of the family planning field workers so that clients receive health and family planning services from fixed facilities established throughout the country. It is hoped, as a result, that clients will adopt more permanent methods of contraception. What are the implications of scaling back the role of the field worker? Over nearly three decades, they have helped shape the demographic transition underway in Bangladesh. As the most direct point of contact with their clients and devoting much of their time to building ongoing relationships, the social capital the filed workers have…