SPARHCS - Strategic Pathway to Reproductive Health Commodity Security
Foreword
The success of family planning programs, continued growth in the number of women of reproductive age, and the growing response to curb the HIV/AIDS pandemic are increasing demand for contraceptives, including condoms, worldwide. Countries are faced with the challenge of ensuring that this demand can be sustainably met. Financing is not keeping pace, while the problem is also often one of disruptions and vulnerabilities in the systems that need to work well, and work together, to ensure that supplies are available to people.
SPARHCS - The Strategic Pathway to Reproductive Health Commodity Security is a tool to help countries develop and implement strategies to secure essential supplies for family planning and reproductive health programs. SPARHCS is meant to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to initiate at the country level concerted efforts toward the goal of reproductive health commodity security. It is not a roadmap, or a fixed process. SPARHCS can be customized to a country's specific needs and resources. It can be used for contraceptives alone, for contraceptives and condoms for HIV/STI prevention, or for a still broader set of reproductive health supplies.
SPARHCS responds to the call from donors and countries for a common approach and framework to achieve reproductive health commodity security. USAID is part of this global effort and is pleased to have provided major support for the development of SPARHCS. I thank the many collaborating agencies for their contributions. SPARHCS is an important step in ensuring people can choose, obtain, and use the contraceptives and other essential reproductive health supplies they want. USAID looks forward to continued progress in this important endeavor.
Margaret Neuse
Director
Office of Population and Reproductive Health
U.S. Agency for International Development
In 1994, 179 countries committed themselves to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). They called for universal access to reproductive health care by 2015. In 1999, the ICPD+5 revealed that although much progress had been achieved much remained to be done. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for drastically reducing maternal and child mortality, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, and markedly improving the health of the poor, all by 2015. However, neither the ICPD goals nor the MDGs will be reached without accelerated progress towards reproductive health commodity security, when individuals can choose, obtain, and use the reproductive health supplies they want.
Since the mid-1960s, use of contraception in developing countries has grown dramatically from approximately 10 per cent to almost 60 per cent. The number of contraceptive users is projected to increase further by more than 40 per cent to 2015 as a consequence of both population growth and an increase in demand for contraception. Meeting these supply requirements will require not only increased financing, but also improvements in logistics and service delivery systems already stretched to their limits. The urgent need to meet this challenge is particularly acute as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that every $1 million shortfall in contraceptive supply assistance can lead to 360,000 unintended pregnancies, or 800 maternal deaths, or 11,000 infant deaths.
SPARHCS - The Strategic Pathway to Reproductive Health Commodity Security will help donors, countries, and other stakeholders develop in-country capacity to increase their reproductive health commodity security in a country driven and sustainable manner. UNFPA would like to express special appreciation to the many organizations and individuals that participated in the development of SPARHCS. Their contributions will no doubt help advance our collective efforts to achieve a comprehensive, long-term, and strategic approach to securing reproductive health commodities for all.
Mari Simonen
Director
Technical Support Division
United Nations Population Fund
