SOME OPINIONS OF THE DIFFERENT ACTORS ON COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN HEALTH AND FAMILY-PLANNING

Community participation constitutes a central strategy in the provisio n of health services, particularly in poor communities in this country . Little is known, however, about the different actors's point of view regarding this strategy. This is true particularly for female communi ty members and community workers. In this paper, historical antecedent s of community participation are discussed and some results of a resea rch work are presented, which explored attitudes and opinions of diffe rent groups of interviwees, regarding the idea of community participat ion in health and family planning. The involved groups are: female com munity members, community workers, community leaders, medical supervis ors which control community workers, and medical executives which cont rol those supervisors. It is emphasized that medical executives are th e strongest supporters of community participation, while community mem bers are the weakest. The importance of taking into account the commun ity members' position on matters such as community participation in fa mily planning is stressed.