Massive need for contraceptives in Uganda

Poor access to family planning services, worries about side effects, religious beliefs and obstruction from partners have led Uganda to have the biggest unmet need for contraceptives in East Africa. About 41% of women in Uganda need contraception, but can’t get it. In neighbouring countries Kenya and Tanzania , the rates are at 25% and 22%. Rwanda has a rate of 38%, while Ethiopia's is 34%.

Almost half of Uganda's one million births every year are unwanted and could be prevented if women effectively took up family planning services, health experts say. Experts argue that between 2005 and 2015, the use of family planning can help avert up to 4.6 million unintended pregnancies that could have occurred in this period, according to the news service, allafrica.com. And the number of people without contraception who need it keeps going up, but the country has not got enough resources to tackle the problem. The government will need up to £15m to properly meet its peoples’ contraception needs by 2015, according to Dr Moses Muwonge, the national reproductive health commodity security coordinator at Uganda's Ministry of Health."Uganda's contribution towards funding family planning is negligible,” said Dr Muwonge. “It is less than 5%. Unless donors increase funding, it might not be easy for the country to meet the unmet needs," he warned at a health workshop in Kampala last month. The conference was told that almost half of the country's one million births a year were unwanted, according to a report in the Guardian.

Every year, Uganda’s population grows at an estimated rate of 3.2%, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The average Ugandan woman will give birth to seven children during her lifetime, which is putting a strain on the country's resources.The Ugandan government relies too much on donor funding in this area and even the meagre resources allocated to finance family planning programmes was not always received by the ministry. "We do not usually get the 100% allocation. Out of what is allocated to family planning, only 20% is actually delivered," Dr Muwonge said. But cash flow isn’t the only problem. Some of the challenges affecting the low numbers of Ugandans who use contraception include doctors not sticking to supply schedules and weak supply chains, especially at local levels, where contraceptives are procured by chance, Muwonge said. Another factor is education. Family planning services at government health centres are free, but health workers sometimes don’t make sourcing contraceptives enough of a priority because they don’t think there is much demand for family planning services in their area. But the low demand could be because women are not aware of their options.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children