Family planning endowment (FLAS)

FLAS will use the interest income from the endowment to improve its existing family planning (FP) activities and/or initiate new ones. This interest income is expected to cover some 25% of FLAS" operating expenses over the next 10 years. Arrangements for managing the endowment will ensure that, inter alia: (1) the principal is used for investment only and is invested so as to yield relatively high and consistent returns at minimum risk; (2) at least one seat on FLAS"s Board is reserved for a person of established reputation in Swaziland"s financial community; and (3) the income from the endowment will be used only for purposes directly relevant to FP (except that some of the income may be reinvested). FLAS intends to use the endowment indefinitely as a funding source for FP activities. FLAS currently operates three FP clinics (the first, second, and eighth largest in the country) providing FP services, sexually transmitted disease (STD) counseling and treatment, pregnancy counseling, Pap smears, and, less frequently, adolescent sexuality counseling and infertility counseling. The organization also provides family life education in secondary schools, operates a community-based distribution (CBD) program in five rural communities, and is working with rural women"s groups in a pilot project, counseling them on personal and family matters, including FP. FLAS services account for about 30% of Swaziland"s total couple-years of protection. Illustrative examples of activities which could be funded from the endowment income include the following (although funds would not be sufficient to finance all of these): hiring new staff (including staff currently funded under Project 6450228, Family Health Services, which is scheduled to end in 12/92); expanding FP services and education to private industry; purchasing antibiotics needed to treat STD infections; operating mobile clinics; and expanding FLAS"s in-school family life education, CBD, and women in development activities.