UNFPA Ethiopia’s Goals and Objectives

UNFPA Ethiopia’s 6^th Country Programme have been designed to support the four priority areas identified in the joint UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF, 2007-2011), signed between the United Nations System and the Government of Ethiopia. Specifically, regarding HIV, the UNDAF states: “By 2011, achieve substantial progress towards reducing the vulnerability to HIV infection, especially of women and girls, and alleviating the impact of the epidemic, with emphasis on underserved and affected population” (UNDAF, Strategic Areas of Cooperation, 2.i.3).

Accordingly, UNFPA Ethiopia’s Advocacy Strategy for implementing its 6^th Country Programme (2007-2011) explicitly states the following objective:

“[Reproductive Health] Advocacy Issue VI: Greater commitment of political leaders and decision-makers to take effective and accelerated HIV prevention actions directed at young people and sex workers particularly focusing on rural areas and on females, using both traditional and new entry points.”

Specifically, through partnership with the Government of Ethiopia, UNFPA Ethiopia seeks to achieve the following policy solutions/actions regarding HIV/AIDS:

• Supporting linking of HIV programme/interventions to SRH and Family Planning;
• Allocating resources earmarked for programmes targeting young people and sex workers;
• Establishing youth centres and youth-friendly corners in health facilities;
• Equipping rural out-of-school youth with life and livelihood skills;
• Establishing outreach programmes for provision of information, condom distribution, and medical services/referral for sex workers; and
• Establishing out-of-school female youth clubs, particularly in rural areas.

To improve maternal health, UNFPA focuses on four prongs: family planning (FP), skilled attendance and birth, emergency obstetric care (EmOC), and reproductive health commodity security (RHCS). Objectives for maternal health are embedded in the four Reproductive Health outputs in UNFPA Ethiopia’s Advocacy Strategy:

• Implementation of the National Road Map for maternal mortality reduction, supported through increased availability of quality and gender-sensitive reproductive health services for women, men and young people. The Road Map places particular emphasis on safe motherhood, family planning, and adolescent reproductive health services, with special attention to the most vulnerable groups;
• Increased gender and culturally-sensitive BCC interventions to address RH and related socio-cultural issues;
• Strengthened HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives for women, men, young people and other vulnerable groups; and
• Strengthened institutional capacity for the management of reproductive health programmes with particular attention to ensuring reproductive health commodity security.
• Finally, all of the Fund’s programmes are designed with the objective of harmonizing interventions. Safe motherhood cannot be ensured, for instance, without providing prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services, or without ending HTPs that cause obstetric complications, or without placing more emphasis on RH, HIV/AIDS, and GBV in humanitarian responses during emergency situations.

For example, such alignment of programming for gender, RH, HIV, and maternal health issues is apparent in the design of a new joint programme with UNICEF. The HIV prevention programme, which targets adolescents and young people, has several key outputs:

• Coordinating and implementing partners, including youth-run organizations, have the capacity to effectively coordinate and enhance youth and adolescent empowerment and access to information and services;
• Adolescents and young people are able to claim their rights for information and services and actively participate in programmes concerning them and the development of their communities;
• HIV/AIDS and SRH model service delivery points for adolescents and young people in pastoralist communities is developed and implemented;
• A conducive environment is developed for adolescent girls which protects them against gender-based violence (GBV) and violation of their reproductive rights (including traditional practices such as early marriage, FGM/C, and the culture of silence and denial around sexual abuse)
• Viable and sustainable livelihood schemes for some of the most vulnerable adolescents and young people are developed and implemented.

• United Nations Population Fund
• P.O. Box 5580
• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Tel: +251-11-551 19 80
• E-mail: ethiopia.office@unfpa.org
• http://www.unfpa.org