REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Modern contraceptive use is about 40-50% around the world, but is less than 10% for most countries in the region. Fertility rates remain high at 5-7 children per woman and contribute strongly to high maternal mortality, among the world's highest. Unmet need for family planning remains at 25-50%, due in part to poor quality and access to services and a range of social factors. Gender violence and the low status of women continue to place women at high risk for unwanted pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including HIV/AIDS. The advent of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other threats has diverted energy and resources away from essential reproductive health services. Aside from the negative health and socioeconomic impact of unplanned pregnancy on individual families, unchecked population growth threatens to erase economic development gains in the region.

PROJECTS

The Action for West Africa in Reproductive Health (AWARE-RH) Project implemented by EngenderHealth, supports reproductive health program scale-up, creates an enabling policies for improved access to services, and strengthens technical and management capacity in the region to contribute to a reduction of unwanted pregnancy and responsible reproductive behavior. Support for the promotion of USAID-supported technical approaches for reproductive health services will benefit a broader population through their replication by other donors and governments. The program will assist governments in the region to improve the reliability of family planning services through forward planning and coordination of commodity supply issues, and reduce dependence on outside assistance.

The MEASURE Project implemented by the Carolina Population Center provides technical assistance and training to strengthen routine monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems of host country programs and local partners across the health sector. The project supports government programs in the region to better define, gather, and report reliable performance data from national reproductive health services, and to provide essential analysis for informed management decision-making. With the support of this program, at least one West African regional institution will be capable of providing strong M&E technical services to government programs on a contract basis. Country programs will also be better able to generate reliable performance data for host governments and donors in the region.

The Rational Pharmaceutical Management Plus (RPM Plus) Project implemented by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) improves the availability of quality reproductive health commodities for priority services and promotes their effective use. RPM Plus provides technical leadership in commodities management to host government and donor programs, and will collaborate closely with the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the West Africa Health Organization (WAHO) to build regional technical capacity and promote effective policies around commodity security. This support will enable government programs in the region to better forecast, procure and manage critical reproductive health commodities. Those countries which have not yet identified resources to purchase needed supplies will, at a minimum, have stronger capacity to quantify and budget for those needs to inform strategic decisions on resource planning or negotiations with non-USG donors

Commodities Logistics

USAID/West Africa purchases contraceptives commodities through the USAID Central Contraceptive Procurement mechanism. The program currently provides contraceptive commodities to family planning programs in 8 countries, including male condoms for UNHCR refugee populations in Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire. USAID/West Africa coordinates commodity needs projections and procurement with UNFPA, host governments, and other donors, and provides between 5% and 20% of estimated needs. Total contraceptive commodity deliveries to all 8 countries in 2007 will be equivalent to 305,000 couple years of protection (CYP).

CYP is a proxy measure of the projected length of protection against pregnancy by contraceptive commodities if used correctly. For each method, CYP is calculated by dividing the quantity of units by a conversion factor representing the number of units needed to protect a couple against pregnancy for one year.

• Contraceptive commodity deliveries planned for 2007, by recipient country
  Contraceptive orders1.xls "Country Report" page
  
• Estimated contraceptive prevalence rate and equivalent of family planning users supplied by USAID/West Africa commodities.
  West Africa demographics.xls "Equivalent support" page
  

USAID tracks contraceptive orders and deliveries using an online system called NEWVERN. NEWVERN is not accessible to all viewers, so receiving countries or organizations, and donors interested in coordinating supply with USAID may request updated procurement and shipping information through USAID/West Africa. Many resources for commodity forecasting and management are available on the NEWVERN website:

NEWVERN LINK