national reproductive health strategy - Ministry of Public Health ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

National Reproductive Health Strategy (2012–2016)Core ValuesHuman Rights: Based on a human rights approach, the RH strategy promotes the rights of allpeople, especially women and children, to life and the highest attainable standard of health.Gender: The strategy aims at promoting gender equality as the basis of RH programmes,especially maternal and newborn health programmes, by addressing the lower status ofwomen and discrimination against women.Equity: The actions promoted within the strategy aspire to contribute toward decreasing theinequities in health in the country, with priority attention to the rural areas and poor andunderserved groups.Culture: The strategy aims at improving reproductive health, highlighting maternal andnewborn health through working with women, families, communities and policy makers anduses a culturally sensitive approach that takes into consideration the socio-culturaldimensions and specifics of the country.Operational PrinciplesQuality of Care: All interventions for reproductive health should be made available with thehighest standard of quality and safety, and services should be delivered according toevidence-based best practices. Addressing providers' needs and community views,particularly those of women, on the quality of service provision is key to ensuring improvedquality and increased access and utilization.Continuum of Care: All women have a right to the best possible care before and duringpregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period at all levels of the health system, asappropriate for each woman’s or newborn’s needs. These levels range from the householdto the first service level, and to the higher-level service site. Primary care should be stronglyconnected to a referral system in order to effectively manage life-threatening complications.This continuum of care encompasses the life-cycle of the woman, from adolescence to thebirth of her own child.An Integrated Approach: Comprehensive services are made available to all, especially towomen and newborns, integrating maternal and newborn care, birth spacing and familyplanning, nutrition, immunization, child survival, prevention and treatment care of malaria,sexually transmitted and HIV infections, and other aspects of primary health care. Becauseof the close links between the different aspects of reproductive health, interventions in onearea are likely to have a positive impact on the others. Existing services will be strengthenedand used as entry points for new interventions, looking for maximum synergy.Ownership, Partnership and Responsibilities: Goals, objectives and strategies are commonlyagreed upon and pursued by the government and their partners, and supported by theinternational community through coordinated actions and activities determined by nationalplans. The BPHS and EPHS are two key examples.Good Governance, Peace and Security: These elements are vital components of a sustainedeffort to improve the health of all people, including the health and survival of mothers andtheir newborns, and are especially relevant to the country.Sustainability through Technical and Financial Capacity Building: Financial and technicalself-reliance is a target for the government and partners working collectively, with ongoingdevelopment of infrastructure.Page 2
National Reproductive Health Strategy (2012–2016)Policies and Strategies Based on Evidence and Best Practices: The choice of policies,strategies and practices is informed by research findings, surveillance, monitoring andevaluation, need assessments, economic analysis, and the sharing of lessons learned andother available evidence-based norms and standards.Achievements and SuccessesHealth needs in Afghanistan continue to be enormous as the country seeks stability, attempts todevelop its infrastructure, accelerates the education of its people and raises their standard of livingall at the same time. Nevertheless, after less than a decade of effort, significant improvements havebeen made in the health status of the population and the strengthening of its health system. Forexample: The BPHS was introduced in 2003; by 2009, 75% of the population was covered by thepackage’s services, as cited by the Health and Nutrition Sector Strategy (HNSS) 2007/08–2012/13.Use of a modern birth spacing/family planning method among married women increasedfrom 10% (MICS 2003) to 20% between 2003 and 2010 (AMS 2010).Receipt of antenatal care by pregnant women increased by 60% and assistance at delivery byskilled birth attendants increased by more than one-third, according to the AMS 2010.Infant mortality declined in the last three years, exceeding the midpoint target set for theachievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).Problems and ConstraintsDespite these and other advances, Afghanistan is still far from its goal of making quality reproductivehealth care available to all the people of the country and thereby improving their health andnutritional status. Use of health services for antenatal, delivery, postpartum and newborn care andfor family planning is still far below the average of other countries in Asia.The Reproductive Health Directorate (RHD) identifies a number of challenges and constraints thatmust be addressed if continued progress is to be made, including: The shortage of qualified female health workers in rural areas;Low community awareness of RH services due to the dispersed population, geographicalbarriers, and a lack of transportation infrastructure;Insecurity, which makes program implementation difficult due to challenges with therecruitment and retention of staff, expansion of service coverage, and RH monitoringsupervision by the provincial and central RH officer;Lack of mechanisms for effective regulation of for-profit, private-sector clinics andgovernmental health services that mainly focus on RH;Lack of a reporting system for RH mortality and morbidity;Lack of a national birth, marriage and death registration system;Lack of a national system for tracking budget expenditures (public and external) on health,including resources specific to reproductive and maternal and newborn/child health; andLow levels of quality and utilization of RH services.Page 3
Page 2 and 3: Ministry of Public Health
Page 4 and 5: Printed on............Kabul, Afghan
Page 6: National Reproductive Health Strate
Page 14 and 15: National Reproductive Health Strate
Page 59: This document was made possible thr

national reproductive health strategy - Ministry of Public Health ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?