U.S, UK give Uganda sh97b for family planning

By Francis Kagolo & Violet Nabatanzi             

The US and UK governments have given Uganda $39m (about sh97.5b) for a family planning campaign aimed at preventing about 1.8 million unplanned pregnancies in the next two and half years.

Expected to save over 3,700 mothers from dying due to pregnancy-related complications, the campaign will be implemented by Marie Stopes, a local NGO, and the Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG).

 Codenamed Accelerating the Rise in Contraceptive Prevalence, the programme is launched today (Thursday) in Wakiso district and will run up to March 2015.

Under the campaign, Marie Stopes will set up more clinical outreaches to provide contraceptives especially in rural areas where family planning coverage is still low.

Jon Cooper, the country director of Marie Stopes Uganda, said more shorterm contraceptive methods will also be made available in remote areas through community-based distribution exercises.

“The programme will transform access to contraception in Uganda, especially in the most rural, underserved areas,” Cooper told a press conference in Kampala Wednesday.  

 The intervention comes at a time when public outcry seems to increasing over the high percentage of unmet family planning need and maternal mortality in the country.

 The Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS) 2011 report shows that only 26% of women of reproductive age are using modern contraception, yet over half of all pregnancies are unintended.  

Uganda’s fertility and population growth rates are among the highest in the Word, with four out of ten women of reproductive age having an unmet need for family planning. On average, rural Ugandan women have six children each.

 The unmet need for family planning remains highest among women in the north and in rural areas throughout the country.

 Although maternal mortality has somehow declined, it is still high, at 438 deaths per 100, 000 live births.

 Cooper was optimistic that the programme would contribute to President Yoweri Museveni’s historic commitment made in the July 2012 London Family Planning Summit, to reduce Uganda’s unmet need for family planning from 40% to 10% by 2022.

 Under the programme, Marie Stopes also plans to train health service providers in various health centres across the country in a bid to enhance their capacity to promote family planning in their respective areas.

“1.8 million women of reproductive age want to stop having children or to space their births. We shall provide these choices to women and by proving the services we are obviously going to impact on maternal mortality,” he noted.

He explained that there was a close link between contraceptive use and reduction in maternal mortality.

The UHMG executive director, Emily Katarikawe, said family planning products are readily available in the country, with protector condoms reaching 77% of its Good Life clinics and injectaplan reaching 60%.

She said as a result of ARC, UHMG is to double its reach from 45 to 90 districts and increase affordable, lifesaving contraceptives and information services to over one million couples.