KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND COMMITMENT OF INDONESIA PARLEMENTARIANS ON POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE  HEALTH ISSUES 2002-2003

ABSTRACT
During the decentralization era which was started in 2001, the role of parliamentarians at all levels; national, province, and district/city is much more important than ever before, There was shift of power from the government to the parliament. The parliament’s function on legislation, budgeting, and controlling are becoming powerful. It is necessry therefore to advocate the members of parliament if their concern and commitment on population and reproductive health related issues are needes.

Person to person advocacy with parliamentarians (PPAP) was implemented by Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on population and Development since May 2002 until the end of December 2003. The Discussant were able to conduct individual meeting with 404 out of 500 members of parliament (80%). This action research aims at assessing and promoting knowledge, awareness, opinions and actions of individual members of parliament, providing them with additonal information, and motivating them about their involvement in population and reproductive health issues.

The majority of parliamentarians inteviewed were highly educated, were in old age(50 Years and over), have four children or more, As expected, the majority of them were muslim and male. It is unlikely, however, even though the majority of them were highly educated, their knowledge on certain sensiteve reproductive health issues is relatively low, Education was associated with knowledge on reproductive health, Greater education attainment was associated with high knowledge of reproductive health. Their Support on the sensitive reproductive health issues, however, is associated with religion, where muslim parliamentarians tend to have less support than their non muslim counterparts.

The knowledge of parliamentarians on human development index, in general were quite good. Their knowledge, however, were similar among different educational background. And yet, their attitude toward human development index was not influenced by their religions. Thus, parliamentarians with different religions tend to have similar attitude on human development index issues.

Their commitment, however, is still questionable since more than half of the parliamentarians did not take any action when there are in in sufficient laws and in sufficient budget on certain issues. This is due to certain reason such as less support to data and information, less support of qualified staff (technical advisers), less of facilities, less transparency and accountability. Their action may also influenced by their perception that their salaries/wares were low.

Based on the findings, it is suggested that countinous advocacy be provided to the parliamentarians at all levels and more especially those who are at sub national levels. More importantly, advocacy through meetings and printed materials on very sensitive issues should also be given to them, Likewise, the involvement of religious leaders in dealing with these issues is also a must, it is also necessary to position IFPPD as the center of data and information on population and reproductive health issues for the parliamentarians.

Through one and half years of implementations, PPAP action research has been to generate several impact such as :(1) increased the number of parliamentarians who care concerned with population and reproductive health issues; (2) establishment of provincial fo of parliamentarians on Populations and Development; (3) increased concern of parliamentarians on sensitive issues such as HIV/AIDS, safe abortion, etc, ; (4) speedy process of amendment of law no.10/1992 on population and family welfare.

There also several lessons learned that can be used for future implementation of similar project. The lesson learned, among others, includes approaches and techniques in implementating PPAP, and involvement of population experts and religious leaders in advocating parliamentarians.