Meeting to discuss Reproductive health issues affecting Africans across the continent

Representatives of civil society, NGOs and the media from six African countries have been meeting in Yaounde since Tuesday to try to agree on the most effective strategies to educate the public on reproductive health issues.

The three-day workshop seeks to implement the Maputo Plan of Action for the putting in place of a continental mechanism through which lessons on sexuality and reproductive health could be better served the public.

Organised by the Cameroon National Association for Family Welfare, CANMNAFAW, in partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, IPPF, the
Yaounde meeting is seeking to define the practical modalities of collaboration between the media, NGOs and the civil society for the effective implementation of the Maputo Action Plan, build the capacities of media practitioners on how to facilitate the implementation of the Action Plan and to see how useful the media could be in the coverage of health related issues in the subregion.

According to the minister of Public Health, Andre Mama Fouda, who co-presided at the opening ceremony with the minister of Communication, Jean-Pierre Biyiti bi Essam, the implementation of the plan here would greatly help ease the universal access to integrated services in the domains of sexuality and reproduction.

Speaking during the official opening of the workshop, the deputy regional director of IPPF, Pamela Ebot Arrey, said reproductive health and the economy should be placed side-by-side so as to know the number of offsprings to bring forth. She noted that complaints of unwanted pregnancies and unplanned children being born are rife in the continent.

The initiative to limit these undesired happenings was born out of a 27 August 2004 sub-regional forum on sexual and reproductive health in Yaounde. African Public Health ministers underlined that there was an alarming child mortality rate, low use of contraceptives and a high rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

As such, they took upon themselves and their respective governments to promote, develop and
reinforce public knowledge on these issues as part of measures to improve the situation.

The Yaounde workshop to round off Thursday, 24 April has participants from Burundi, Congo, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Cameroon.