Back ground and Women's Health and Rights

The policy environment in Uganda is supportive of the condom promotion in principle, and there are currently no regulations that would negatively affect the design and implemenattion of female condom program. The Ministry of Health has been implementing a "quite" condom promotion policy. A draftcondom policy document has been developed by the Ministry of Health in Uganda. However, it has been publicly launched, or disseminated widely due to lack of consensus among key developemnt partners.

According to the Situational Analysis of the Female Condom (FC) in Uganda by the Ministery of Health of February 2009, the FC program adopted a strategic apporach of using existing structures. However, it lacked an explicit implementation strategy and realistic provions for funding to support tratining, community mobilization, demand generation and distribution. No promotion strategy was planned or executed, nor were target groups prioritised to optmise uptake through existing channels. Service providers were not able to provide interpersonal outreach which has been shown to be  a key factor for successful trial and subsequent uptake. The majority of people interviewed across the country had never seen the FC. It was difficult to find users who were not part of an FC study. Commercial Sex Workers [CSW] honed their negotiation skills and used it successfully with clients. Price was an important barrier to condom use for the FC users, all women of low income. Other factors that discouraged use were partner refusal, aesthetics and cultural practices. No operational systems were developed for monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance and management oversight.  






The sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls are intrinsically linked. It is essential that global and domestic women’s organizations support each other’s efforts to embrace and promote the use of the female condoms as a strong tool against HIV and other STIs, as well as maternal deaths.NACWOLA - Uganda is currently coordinating a coalition for female condom promotion advocacy. So let us support the efforts of the coalition. Together we can.....