United Nations Population Fund Shifts Reproductive Health Focus From Family Planning to AIDS in Kenya
The United Nations Population Fund has "broadened its mandate" in Kenya and is now developing reproductive health programs in which family planning is "only a small component" in light of the AIDS epidemic, Kenya's Daily Nation reports. It is "not practical to ask mothers whose children are dying at birth to plan their families," Wangoi Njau, a UNFPA senior official working with the Family Planning Association of Kenya, said, adding that AIDS was killing the "most productive" members of society in Kenya. She said that her agency will now focus on both preventing AIDS and reducing unintended pregnancies, noting that the majority of family planning devices "also double as HIV/AIDS prevention tools, so we are using one stone to kill two birds." Njau, who is working with the Kenyan family planning group to establish reproductive health centers in 21 districts of the country, spoke at the UNFPA Reproductive Health Commodity Security workshop in Mombasa. The workshop, which runs all week, is focusing on "empowering women to take a more active role in their reproductive health" by discouraging early marriage and promoting the education of girls (Kithi, Daily Nation, 11/14).
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