Jiang Chunyun, chairman of the China Family Planning Association (CFPA), said fewer than one-third of its grassroots branches in countryside did a good job, while another one-third performed poorly.

The CFPA, boasting over 1 million branches and more than 80 million members, is China's largest non-government organization that devotes into promoting the country's family planning policy.

"People in rural areas, especially in the country's western regions are lack of basic knowledge on contraception, AIDS prevention and family planning," said Jiang.

"Meanwhile, tens of thousands of rural people are flowing into cities, most of whom concentrate in small and medium-sized non-State enterprises, where few of family planning associations are set up," Jiang expressed his concerns at yesterday's opening of the Third Session of CFPA's fifth plenary meeting.

"We can never overestimate the conditions of our grassroots network and should give priority to improving services of basic level organs so that rural and migrant people can really learn more about sex, relevant diseases, healthy births, and benefit from our service," Jiang said.

Yang Kuifu, vice-chairman of the association, pledged that, in the future, the CFPA would strive to reach every household in every village and to every work unit. He said the network could do more to satisfy family planning and reproductive health needs than any single government agency.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2002)