Sri Lanka’s success story in population

A lesson for other programmes:

Dr A T P L Abeykoon

(Excerpts from the Keynote Address at the Inauguration of the Annual Scientific Sessions of the Population Association of Sri Lanka, 2011)

The population programme in Sri Lanka is one of the most successfully implemented programmes by Government since Independence. It is a lesson for other public sector programmes. It is also a programme where right decisions were taken at the right time and right people were appointed to the right jobs.

The decade of the 1950s saw Sri Lanka experiencing its highest rate of population growth in its known demographic history. However, perhaps due to fear of religious opposition, there was no direct intervention by government to reduce the rate of population growth which was growing at a near three percent annually. Nevertheless, the governments of the day did take some decisions which paved the way for a subsequent national programme. The beginnings of population activities in Sri Lanka were modest.

The Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka, a NGO was set up in 1953. The activities of the Association were recognized by the government in 1954 by providing a small financial grant. In 1958, the government realizing the importance of reducing the rate of population growth, entered into an agreement with the government of Sweden to implement a pilot project to ascertain whether there is a demand for family planning among married couples and also to know whether there is religious opposition to family planning.

The findings of the survey carried under the project revealed that there was a latent demand for family planning and there was no major religious opposition. Thus when the ten-year plan of the government was presented in 1959 it stated that “unless there is some prospect of a slowing down in the rate of population growth and of relative stability in at least the long run, it is difficult to envisage substantial benefits from planning and development”.

Labour force survey

A labour force survey conducted by the Department of Labour with the assistance of the ILO in 1960 revealed that 10 percent of the labour force in the country was unemployed. This worried the policy makers. In 1963, when the Census of Population was taken, the data clearly showed that the age structure of the population has taken the shape of a pyramid where 42 percent of the population was under 15 years. It was evident to demographers and economic planners that longer the country stays in this position, greater would be the social and economic costs. This was particularly so for Sri Lanka where health and educational services are provided free of charge and rice was distributed free to the entire population.

Therefore, in 1965 the government took a policy decision to include family planning as part of the maternal and child health programme. This legitimized family planning which hitherto was seen as ‘ugly’ by certain quarters. Sri Lanka was fortunate to have had at that time, outstanding health professional who resisted the temptation of running a parallel family planning programme to the health programme as some countries in the region did.

As a result of the rapid growth of population in the 1950s and the rising enrolment of young people in secondary and higher education, the new entrants to the labour market grew rapidly by the end of the decade of 1960s. Thus by 1971, about 20 percent of the labour force was unemployed.

This resulted in a youth uprising in April 1971. The ILO mission invited by the government to study the youth unemployment problem did make reference to the population issue as follows: “Suppose that a family planning campaign policy had been implemented at the same time as the malaria eradication campaign in the 1940s and had reached the present target birth rate of 25 per 1000 in 1955, the result today (1971) of such a programme would have been to lighten the task of creating employment very considerably”.

Strain on resources

Therefore, when the five-year plan of the government was presented in 1972, it stated very clearly that “The continued growth of population at present high rates will pose problems which would defy every attempt at solution. In the long-run, the expansion of population at present rates would result in a population of about 27 million in the year 2000. The strain on resources imposed by the present rate of population growth would be almost intolerable.

The Plan thus gives very high priority to the diffusion of family planning facilities amongst the mass of the adult population”. The woman Minister of Health at that time took a personal interest in the family health programme and strengthened the family planning services particularly the surgical contraceptive services.

In 1973, a project agreement was signed between the Government and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to broadbase the population programme. As there were many institutions outside the Ministry of Health implementing population activities, coordination became an important issue. Thus in 1974, the coordination of UNFPA funded projects was vested under the new Ministry of Plan Implementation which functioned under the Prime Minister.

Population policy statement

In 1991. The National Health Council approved a population policy statement which gave priority to reaching replacement level fertility (an average of two children per woman) by the year 2000. In 1998, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the National Population and Reproductive Health Policy to broad base population and reproductive health activities. Thus by 2000 as planned, the fertility reached replacement level. If the fertility rate had not declined as it did, Sri Lanka would have faced serious social and economic problems. It would have been difficult to provide free education and health services and other social welfare services to the mass of the population as provided today.

Thus by 2006, the country had reached the final phase of its demographic transition and the Population Division of the Ministry of Health had achieved its goal of stabilizing population growth for sustainable development. The population age structure had transformed into a barrel shape from that of a pyramid shape. The proportion of population under age 15 had declined from 42 percent in 1963 to 24 percent in 2006 reducing the dependency ratio from 82 to 45 percent during this period.

This has resulted in a bulge in the young ages of the population who are also educated. The relatively high proportion of young people in the population is commonly referred to as the ‘demographic bonus’. Thus on all counts the demographic structure in Sri Lanka at present is conducive to rapid economic expansion. It is necessary to emphasize, however, that failure to ensure appropriate enabling economic conditions could waste opportunities created by this demographic bonus. In this transition from high population growth to relatively slow growth, what mattered most were the people who managed, coordinated and implemented programme activities. They were the very heart and soul of the programme, the movers and shakers.

Dr A T P L Abeykoon is former Director, Population Division of the Ministry of Health. During his four decades as a public servant he has contributed immensely to the field of demography in Sri Lanka and in the formulation and implementation of population policies and strategies. He was popularly known as ‘Mr. Population’