In the early 1960s Taiwan was considered an "underdeveloped" economy and a traditional society where people wanted many children (44 ). A study found, however, that many couples would have preferred fewer children than they actually had. Couples interviewed expressed interest in obtaining contraceptives, and, when public health nurses offered these same couples contraceptives, many accepted. Such research helped assure Taiwanese policymakers that people would welcome a family planning program (44 ).

In Thailand research has shown that, although most Thais were rural, poor, and had little education, latent demand for family planning was strong even before the government family planning program made services widely available in the early 1970s (89, 173 ).

More recently, studies in Bangladesh have found evidence of popular demand for family planning throughout the country (23). Contraceptive use has risen and fertility has fallen among less educated, poor, rural people as well as among the educated and urban. In recent years improved roads and increased exposure to the mass media have made rural areas less isolated. People have begun to adopt new values, and the family planning program has made contraceptive information and services widely available.

Other examples of popular demand for family planning come from around the world, from places as different as Brazil and Tanzania. In Brazil, despite public opposition to family planning from several important groups and an ambivalent official policy, "Brazilian women overwhelmingly want family planning services" (214). Some 66% of married women of reproductive age use contraception (164). In Tanzania "some donors were shocked" when the 1991-92 Demographic and Health Survey revealed that 30% of married Tanzanian women of reproductive age wanted to prevent pregnancy but were not using family planning—three times the number then using family planning (265).

Making a choice. Family planning programs work best when they provide people with full information and a choice of services in a climate of respect. Government goals and projections may be an important part of national development planning. But setting targets for contraceptive "acceptors" is not the road to family planning success. Rather, if people are given the opportunity, they choose family planning when it meets their needs (159).

Commenting on the early days of family planning in Colombia, Miguel Trias, executive director of the Asociación Pro-Bienestar de la Familia (Profamilia), notes, "At the beginning we made the mistake of believing that we had to devote most of the effort to 'educate' people on the need for and convenience of regulating their reproduction. It took us some time to realize that what the people were expecting from us was the delivery of contraceptive services" (263).

As USAID has stated in its 1994 document, Strategies for Sustainable Development, "Targets or quotas for the recruitment of clients should not be imposed on family planning providers; over the long term, meeting the unmet need for information and services is the best way to achieve national demographic goals" (196).