Current rural public resources need to use all their resources to speed up the construction of the rural public service system. Research by the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development shows that it would be efficient and economical to build the rural public service network provided current public resources worked together with the rural population and family planning network. Desirable results could be achieved in less time for less money.

7. Fully exploit and extend the advantages of population and family planning networks to strengthen the rural public service system. Currently, China has established a stable population and family planning management and service network across urban and rural areas. This network integrates the functions of administrative management, technical service, mass work, communities and villagers autonomous organizations. It also fully exploits the competitive edges of the personnel, services and information within the current population and family planning network to speed up construction of the rural public service system.

Institutional and human resources for rural public service system should be built on the basis of rural population and family planning network. Building a rural public service system requires systems engineering; support is needed from extensive social and institutional resources. After years of effort, China has established an able population and family planning work force. They understand that they must satisfy farmers' needs for basic public service. Rural public service must have good staff.

An all-encompassing rural public service information system should be set up based on the rural population and family planning network. Construction of this system requires a comprehensive information system that reflects the need for diversity. Farmers from different regions have different kinds of public service needs. Currently China has established a relatively sound information system for its population and family planning network, covering various aspects of information on rural population. By establishing a comprehensive rural public service information system through integrating related rural public service information channels China's vast number of farmers will be better served.

Continue to expand the functions of population and family planning network in a proactive way. Judging from the actual situation, there is still much room for functional expansion of China's population and family planning network. Currently, at least three aspects are worth considering. First, rural minimum living allowance and social relief can kick-start the process, as China has already has the financial capacity to establish rural minimum wages and a social relief system. Second, public sanitation and health care should be provided for rural areas. If properly exploited, advantages of the current population and family planning network can make up for the deficiencies of current rural sanitation and health care. Free public sanitation services, prevention and health care can be provided to farmers through the population and family planning network. Third, the population and family planning network can fully exploit its network advantages to provide accurate information to all related government departments. This will help government agencies to access basic information in a timely manner to function smoothly. Also, an established network of the population and family planning system will enable other government departments to strengthen their roles in rural affairs and to achieve success in related fields.

8. Building up rural population development service centers and gradually integrating the rural public service resources on the basis of the principle of optimizing allocated resources.

To guarantee basic public services through the population and family planning network would speed up the reform of county-level state-owned organizations and greatly improve the ability of rural public service supply.

China has its traditional public service organizations in rural areas. They are normally distributed in the local town and township governments and various institutions as cultural centers, urban construction centers, land administration centers, post offices, farming machinery stations, cooperative shops and power supply centers. Based on the current situation of rural areas, building "rural population development service centers" on the basis of the traditional family planning service centers is advised.

The new centers will have the basic functions of family planning service centers, including stabilizing low birth rate, spreading marriage and family planning knowledge, and providing pregnancy and after-labor services. At the same time it will expand its functions to other fields. Public services offered by local governments and institutions will gradually be merged into the new centers, including rural compulsory education, public medical care, public sanitary, social security and public security. Also, profitable businesses run by these organizations will be put on the market. It is expected that these changes will reduce work overlap and resource waste in the rural public service. It would also create interactive relations between the government and society via public service supply, and improve the overall efficiency of rural public service system.

9. Cultivate the relationship between family planning and public health during the process of developing rural public service system.

Different departmental interests have to be considered while planning the construction of a rural public service system based inside the population and family planning network.

For instance, some service that the rural population and family planning network provides is similar to what the medical and health sectors provide. Some overlapping on work and resources exists. This could lead to conflict if no better arrangement existed. Thus, relations between the two departments should be well coordinated and form a joint force.

A practical way would promote the medical and health departments remaining under the umbrella framework of state-owned medical resources, maintenance of medical order, the supervision of the medical market, the establishment of basic medical guarantee system (including the promotion of new rural cooperative medical care), etc. Population and family planning network duties should focus on population development, rural health care and public sanitation, and basic health care for farmers and women of child-bearing age. These are related more to policy-decisions than to technical aspects.

To create an effective work division, both departments should make full use of their advantages while competing and cooperating with each other to speed up the process of building and improving the rural public service system. Technical capabilities of the health and medical departments need improvement. The population and family planning network can entrust technical services to the health and medical departments. The population and family planning network should be further strengthened and improved, thus reducing duplicate investments on the network construction by health and medical departments. The health and medical departments can use the network to obtain and update rural public health development information. However, in practice, flexible measures and various models should be adopted in accordance with different situations in different areas (e.g., population density, local diseases).

(China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development and translated by China Development Gateway December 20, 2007)