I'm the youngest of 12 children. And although I was the youngest, I tried to organize things in my family. When there were disputes, I tried to mediate.

When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive.

International "experts" from technical assistance agencies or universities can make important contributions, but they certainly don't have all the answers. When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive.

It is not enough to give money for demonstration projects. From the very beginning plans should be made for the scaling-up of successful innovations.

Bureaucratic systems are not set up to be what we refer to as human service organizations. They were established to collect revenue and maintain law and order and they used a law and order approach in providing family planning services.

Major changes become possible if you work in a participatory manner, listen to local people, diagnose what the problems are, provide training and identify where there are opportunities for mobilizing local resources to take action.

We felt that the Gates Foundation looked at our track record and our publications and decided that "this is persuasive; this needs to be done. Let's see what they can do."