Spotlight on Tanzania

Kisa and Stanley, a couple in their 30s living in Arusha, Tanzania, are proud parents of five healthy children—and that was enough for them. Before EngenderHealth’s ACQUIRE Tanzania Project (ATP), with support from the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), partnered with their local health clinic to make a range of contraceptive options available, they were resigned to the possibility of Kisa’s becoming pregnant again—a prospect that caused her endless worry. But, according to Stanley, contraception has “helped us plan our life, and take care of our family.”

Read more at EngenderHealth.org.

First Lady of Tanzania Visits EngenderHealth-Supported Clinic

In November 2009, the First Lady of Tanzania, Mama Salma Kikwete, visited Madaba Health Centre, a facility in the Ruvuma Region in southwestern Tanzania that is supported by EngenderHealth and that serves 50,000 people. The First Lady was there as part of a national campaign to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality, and she spoke about the importance of avoiding early pregnancy, improving maternal health care, and openly discussing HIV and preventing its spread.

EngenderHealth, through a U.S. Agency for International Development–supported ACQUIRE Project Associate Award, is helping to equip facilities in the Ruvuma Region with obstetric wards and is improving the quality and use of family planning services by training health care staff, strengthening supervisors’ skills, and raising awareness in communities. Over the past year, more than 400 clients received long-acting or permanent methods of contraception at Madaba, and nearly 9,000 clients received these methods in the region overall. EngenderHealth, through funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), also trains health care professionals to provide counseling and testing for HIV and AIDS, other reproductive health services, and life-skills coaching to youth.

Last year, EngenderHealth assisted 38 facilities throughout Tanzania in improving the quality of their maternal health and family planning services.

Learn more about EngenderHealth’s work in Tanzania.

Reproductive Health: Front and Center in Azerbaijan

A recent national conference organized by EngenderHealth demonstrates that reproductive health has become a top priority for the Azerbaijani government. On February 17–18, more than 100 policymakers, health care professionals, and other leaders attended the reproductive health quality improvement conference in Baku. Over the last four years, EngenderHealth has been partnering with the Azerbaijani government (through the ACQUIRE Project) to strengthen its reproductive health systems. The need for better health services is great: Like many former Soviet republics, abortion had been the main method of family planning in Azerbaijan, and contraceptive choice was severely limited.

	“This conference brings reproductive health and family planning issues to a new level among parliamentarians—89% of whom are men and think that reproductive health problems are women’s concerns.” –Malahat Hasanova, member of Parliament

Participants in the meeting included four members of the Azerbaijani Parliament, officials from the government’s Ministry of Health (at the national and regional levels), doctors, health care staff, medical school administrators, and representatives of partner organizations. The discussion centered on barriers to care, and the attendees developed an action plan to address these issues.

A centerpiece of the meeting was the government officials’ presentation of a draft of the country’s first reproductive health law, which ensures the right of all Azerbaijanis to high-quality reproductive health care and family planning.

Throughout the process of developing the law and leading up to this meeting, EngenderHealth has emphasized the importance of improving the quality of reproductive health care and family planning, upholding clients’ rights to safe and effective services, and ensuring informed choice and confidentiality. EngenderHealth staff also successfully advocated for the inclusion of contraceptives on the Essential Drug List and helped the government draft the section detailing the country’s contraceptive supply needs. Additionally, EngenderHealth shared its publications on Islam and family planning, its experience working in other Muslim countries, and its expertise in applying evidence-based quality improvement approaches like COPE®.

USAID Project Treats Nigerian Women with Reproductive Tract Afflictions

Voice of America has reported on The ACQUIRE Project, one of EngenderHealth’s programs supporting treatment of women with fistula.

“Helping USAID in its effort is an NGO called ACQUIRE – or Access, Quality and Use in Reproductive Health. Together, they are working to prevent and repair fistula, or V.V.F. It’s an abnormal opening or passageway between the birth canal and one of the internal organs, including the bladder. Fistula can occur during obstructed labor or by tears in the birth canal inflicted during female circumcision, or Yankan gishiri’, in Hausa. Waste material seeps through the passage, often leading an unpleasant – and embarrassing – odor. But with surgery, the passageway can be sealed.”

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