The role of social marketing in family planning in Rwanda

Abstract

The major reason to conduct this research was to study the role social marketing in family planning in Rwanda. Use of family planning methods and especially most modern methods allow couples to achieve fertility objective and ideal family size. As many people look at marketing as only advertising and selling, it was observed that social marketing concept helps to achieve behavioral goals aimed at changing the target market’s attitude and behaviors towards the common goal. The study involved the problem identification which is witnessed by the high population increase in Rwanda from 7- 12 Million people as per current statistics, and despite the Government campaigns against population pressures and its consequences of poverty, famine, shortage of land, diseases, and poor access to education has resulted into poor quality of life. Social marketing through the use of social media is set to understand how it can create awareness through social marketing campaigns, use of promotional mix in order to address behavioral change. The specific objectives of the study were; to study family planning awareness, to identify the level of media awareness, to study the role played by social marketing on family planning, to identify media/ communication messages used in social marketing, to assess the effect of social marketing on family planning with respect to demographic variables and to identify the role played by social marketing on quality of life. The research was conducted in 2 district of Rwanda, in the northern rural province of Ruhengeri, those were Musanze and Burera, 2 sectors were selected in each District and 20 respondents in each based on convenience sampling. Data collection design was made up of primary and secondary sources.