Abstract

PIP: This article describes the implementation of a project in rural Thailand that used loan incentives for promoting small-scale income-generating activities and contraception practice. The project was initiated by the non-governmental Population and Community Development Association. Quarterly bonuses to a village fund are tied to the village's contraceptive prevalence rate, loan applications to individuals are prioritized according to applicant family planning (FP) practice, and members receive fund shares according to FP method used, e.g. 80 shares for a vasectom, 20 for an IUD. FP practice was monitored and the loan fund administered by trained loan fund officers from the community. The proiject was evaluated using 6 project villages and 3 controls with no loan fund. 3 of the experimental villages's loan funds were managed by female committees and benefits were available to all women regardless of marital status. The other funds were male/female managed and available only to married reproductive age couples. The proportion of women practising FP increased form 46% to 75% in 2 years, as opposed to from 51% to 57% in the contrrol villages. Pregnancy rates declined sharply. The strongest mechanism forFP use seems to have been the village-level incentive. Loan officers were able to motivate villagers to use FP. Women's status appears to have improved in the villages with female-administered funds. By encoraging capital investment, the fund appears to have gbreatly improved farm profits, and the loan repayment rate was almost 100%. The program attempted to avoid coersion, and did not compete with other loan programs. It appears helpful to emphasize training officers. Futre programs can tie incentives to pregnancy rates to deemphasize modern contraception. Services being promoted must be accessible and socially acceptable.