UAFC Implementation Guide launched
At the International Conference "Prevention, Pleasure and Protection" the latest UAFC publication is formally launched. The book "Making female condoms available and accessible, a guide on implementing female condom programs" is an important and concrete result of the work of UAFC and its partners.
Female condoms contribute to the variety of contraceptive choices and prevent urgent sexual and reproductive health problems, such as unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/Aids. Despite these convincing advantages, globally, female condoms are still not widely programmed on a large scale. Introducing female condoms more widely needs truly large-scale programming in the sense that all different aspects of successfully introducing it into the market are included, e.g. procurement of the female condom, supply chain management, promotion on community level, media engagement, and advocacy. This Implementation Guide on Female Condom Programming aims to facilitate the expansion of large-scale female condom programming worldwide, so that the female condom will be available, accessible and affordable for all women and men.
This guide is written for (potential) implementers of large-scale female condom programs of national and international NGOs, CBOs, donors, health practitioners, and other professionals in the field of health, sexual and reproductive health, HIV/Aids prevention, and gender. It offers valuable information about implementing female condom programs, based on experiences in Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It represents the experiences, lessons learned, challenges and successes of the female condom programs.
This Implementation Guide represents the experiences, lessons learned, challenges and successes of the female condom programs of our colleagues in Cameroon, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. These programs are being implemented in very distinct contexts and have been adapted accordingly. Each program has generated new ideas and insights regarding what it means to conduct female condom programming successfully.
These female condom programmers in these countries face some of the same challenges, but also very different ones, depending on the setting in which they work. Most importantly, all of them have a passion for the female condom and sincerely believe that female condom use ultimately improves couples’ sexual and reproductive health. Their experiences are included in this guide, so that their stories will help you anticipate challenges and opportunities as best as you can when implementing a large-scale female condom program.
This guide will offer you the opportunity to get a comprehensive overview of all different aspects of large-scale female condom programming. The guide is however structured such that you can pick and choose the themes that are particularly relevant for you to learn more about, depending on the context in which you are implementing your program.
The implementing organizations involved in this guide have aimed to document and share their experiences with current and future implementers of large-scale female condom programs, so that more women and men around the world will have access to the female condom. Let’s make the female condom available, accessible and affordable for all!
The Implementation Guide is available in English and in French. The Portuguese version is still in production.
photo's: Guus Schoonewille
