In July 2016, the Government of Ethiopia shared an update on progress in achieving its policy, financial and program and service delivery commitments to FP2020.
The government reports performing the following activities in support of its program and service delivery commitment:
- To help meet the needs of married and unmarried adolescents and youth, the government has undertaken the following activities in 2015-2016:
- Training on comprehensive family planning was given for university clinic personnel and health professionals to make family planning services available for youths and adolescents in collaboration with partners and Ministry of Education.
- The government are working to strengthen youth reproductive health services in youth centers by providing training and IEC/BCC materials and franchising private clinics to address both in- and out-of-school adolescents and youths.
- The Ministry of health has developed a 2015-2020 adolescent youth health strategy and made adolescent and youth reproductive health as one of the components.
- The government is conducting research on the “factors affecting utilization of family planning among adolescents” and developing a policy brief focused on examining the risk-taking behaviors of adolescents and youth in the country.
- Taskforce Update Nationally as a country Ministry of Youth and sport established and working specifically on adolescent and youth.
- The Ministry of Health is a member of a taskforce on adolescents and youth, which has been formed by the Ministry of Youth and Sport.
- The Government of Ethiopia has engaged in the following activities to improve access to family planning for isolated pastoralist communities:
- In 2015-2016, the ministry continued conducting advocacy activities to promote family planning by engaging religious and community and clan leaders.
- The government has also started conducting fully-funded research on the barriers for utilization of family planning among pastoralist communities to design evidence-based interventions.
- In addition, Ethiopia has developed the Health Sector Transformation Plan to 2015-2020, which states equity as one of the transformation agenda focus areas; based on this agenda, the ministry is expanding access for quality family planning services for these communities.
- The government of Ethiopia has engaged in the following activities in 2015-2016 to strengthen commodities security and to monitoring the availability of contraceptives:
- The Pharmaceuticals Fund Supply Agency (PFSA) has established a family planning logistics technical working group to coordinate all stakeholders for the efficient management of the logistics system; the technical working group meets monthly.
- A three-year forecasting and quantification analysis has been developed under the leadership of the Ministry of Health’s Pharmaceuticals Logistics Management Unit (PLMU) and Pharmaceuticals Fund Supply Agency (PFSA), and with technical support from the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT for advocacy and resource mobilization.
- Regarding the availability of contraceptives, supportive supervision and evaluation has been undertaken to monitor stock-outs at service delivery points. UNFPA has also conducted a stock status survey.
- The government has continued to fulfil commodities needs based on gaps and requests made by health facilities.
- The government of Ethiopia has engaged in the following activities to increase the uptake of long-acting reversible methods:
- Both the Implanon Scale-Up and IUCD Scale-Up initiatives continue to be implemented, with more than 3000 health extension workers being trained on Implanon and 2401 health care providers being oriented to the new Implanon NXT.
- In addition to this, the ministry is piloting IUCD provision by level 4 health extension workers in selected woredas and zones with high population pressure and low family planning use. The government has trained level 4 health extension workers from selected zones and equipped them.
- To address high unmet need, the government is expanding post-partum family planning services in hospitals and health centers with high delivery caseloads.
The government reports performing the following activities in support of its financial commitment:
- At the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, the government of Ethiopia committed to increasing budget allocation for family planning yearly. The government reports the expenditure for family planning in 2015-2016, including estimated cost for human resources, was US $27,551,187. In addition, the government has conducted regional advocacy workshops to promote family planning as a major priority of health activities and budget allocation activities.
