Relevance of Social Marketing in the Global South's Family Planning Programmes: A Case of Zambia

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the challenges of health-related behaviour change programmes in countries where there are strong cultural influences on behaviours coupled with a strong religious influence; either or both which may be in conflict with ‘western' scientific approaches. These issues are common across many countries in the Global South. The term Global South refers to low income, often politically or culturally marginalised countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Oceania region (Dados and Connell in Contexts 11(1):12-13, 2012). The chapter focuses on fertility behaviour in a country within the Sub-Saharan region. Data from Zambia relating to cultural norms, religion and fertility behaviour is presented. Firstly, the potential influence of Pre-Marriage Counselling (Pre-MC) on Family Planning (FP) and contraceptive choice decisions is described. Then the influence of religion and fertility behaviour such as the claimed use of cannabis seed as a contraceptive is presented. This chapter displays a case study that has implications for countries beyond Sub-Saharan Africa and a research agenda for cross-cultural social marketing-related research concludes the chapter.