Developing a culturally appropriate family planning program for the Navrongo experiment

This article describes the first six months of the strategic planning process to develop a culturally appropriate community health and family planning program for a traditional community in a district of northern Ghana, served by the Navrongo Health Research Centre. To explain the context within which fertility decisions are made, this article describes the district's severe ecological, social, economic, and health constraints to family planning. It discusses related programmatic obstacles and presents the strategies developed to respond to them. A system of care has been developed that is closely coordinated with traditional leaders and communication networks. Management systems support outreach workers by emphasizing the importance of peer leadership, supervisory support, and community liaison in the implementation of village-based services. A large-scale experiment will be fielded to test the demographic impact of this approach.