As resources for family planning programs become more scarce, measurement of program efficiency is rapidly becoming one of the top priorities of family planning program evaluators. This study of Thailand is part of the continuing effort to evaluate the efficiency and impact of program inputs on family planning achievement and fertility. Analysis is restricted to 70 of Thailand's provinces as they existed from 1975-1979. Data falls into 4 categories: 1. data on government family planning inputs, 2. 1970 census data on the environmental or socioeconomic conditions, 3. data on family planning achievement that came fron the National Family Planning Program (NFPP) service statistics report for December 1978, and 4. 1980 census fertility data. Composite variables were created to improve sensitivity, correlation matrices were run to select the most important variables, and multiple regression and path analysis were used define the effects of the main independent variables on the dependent variables. The study concludes that: 1. Thailand's NFPP has an observable effect on family planning use which, in turn, has had a strong impact on reducing fertility. 2. This impact is the result of interaction between the modernization of the environment and the availability of health personnel and their services. Either factor alone has only a moderate effect on family planning use and fertility. However, when the 2 factors increase together in the same area, there is a marked impact on fertility after several years. These findings may enable the NFPP to define optimal amount of inputs for a given socioeconomic setting, resulting in more efficient use of decreasing resources.

The main objectives of the ESCAP project: Study on the Impact and Efficiency of Family Planning Programs, are to test the methodology for measuring the impact of family planning programs, and develop a measure of efficiency which could be used by program administrators for quick adjustments in program management. This report concludes that the number of workers, doctors, family welfare visitors, and family welfare centers are going to be the important predictors for areal variation in family planning program performances regardless of the socioecomic factors in Bangladesh. Until the late 1970s, the number of doctors available and % of female literacy could significantly explain the macro level areal variation in total fertility rate much more than the other types of family planning program and non-program factors. The study shows the limitations of input-output ratios as the appropriate measure of program performance. The efficiency-index proposed in this study appears to have worked better as it takes into account socioeconomic and other factors that may create the areal variation in program inputs.

With special reference to India.