Dutch Development Cooperation Event

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On the 26 September the Dutch Ministry for Development Cooperation organized an event celebrating 60 years of Development Cooperation. Approximately 1500 people were present. The celebration was particularly interesting for its speakers (demographic professor Hans Rosling, former president of Ghana John Kufuor, and Kofi Annan had sent in a video message), and also the wide range of participants, from government, civil society, students and private sector. Minister Bert Koenders made interesting deals with private sector, like TNT Post and Akzo Nobel.
During the day several plenary sessions were held as well as clinics and presentations. Ilze Smit, Monique Demenint and Lucie van Mens conducted a clinic on the Female Condom (FC) project. An odd 20 people participated the clinic of which many high representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Joke Brandt, Director General International Development Cooperation; Marijke Wijnroks, AIDS ambassador; Bram van Ojik, director Social Development; Lilly Talapessy, senior policy officer; Donia Hammadi, policy adviser SRGR, and Farah Karimi (executive director Oxfam Novib).
Lucie van Mens gave a presentation on the FC in general and led the discussion about stereotypes. Monique Demenint spoke about UAFC Joint Programme and the connection with MDG 5, and last, Ilze Smit showed how to use the female condom using a plastic pelvic model.
The conclusion was that the Female condom hasn’t got much attention in the Netherlands in comparison to Africa. Getting more attention also in The Netherlands is necessary in order to strengthen the support base.

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Knowledge Base

Countries in this article

Netherlands

UAFC lobby paper

UAFC has developed a profound advocacy strategy in order to achieve acces to female condoms for all. For background on this strategy and to strengthen your own lobby activities you have access to this paper.

download the document

Breaking down the barriers!

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Ilze Smit of UAFC Joint Programme presented the session Female Condom Programming and Advocacy: Braking down the Barriers! at the NGO Forum ICPD+15.

read her weblog

see the photo's of the Forum

Trainings in Rwanda

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"In our daily work in HIV prevention and even in our sexual and reproductive life sessions with potential users, in trainings and advocay, we talk about female condoms as you can see in these photos. I'm pushing to include FC in our major advocay themes. It recently has been included in the Rwanda National NGO forum on AIDS for the four year strategic plan (2009/2012)," says Fortunée Twiyubahe from ACORD/Oxfam International in Rwanda.

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Knowledge base live

Part of our new website is the revolutionary knowledge base. This is a repository of concepts related to the main theme of UAFC, the female condom. This repository is organized according to themes, geographic location and time. We invite you to start exploring our knowledge base.

If you feel you have anything to contribute don't hesitate to contact us.

ACMS Website

In Cameroon the Association Camerounaise pour le Marketing (ACMS) works on making Female Condoms available to a large usersgroup. ACMS has its own website, with which it reaches especially young people.

Interview with Victoria Archibong, SFH

"I believe the introduction of the male condoms was relatively easier. This could be because it was easier to target men as the “dominant” party in relationships and the ones who will wear the condoms. There was also a lot of support from donors and IPs. The female condom is regarded more as a “woman thing”. Some men may feel threatened as the female condom will empower women in demonstrating their sexual and reproductive health rights. For Female condom programming, programmers have to be more creative and strategic."

read the interview

"I'm going to use mine"

"The male condom was promoted so hard in advertising, through school education and advocacy – we need the same effort for the female condom," said Farah Karimi, director of Oxfam-Novib at a press conference at the International AIDS Confernce in Mexico City. Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland added: Girls and women need the skills to say, 'if you're not going to use yours then I'm going to use mine' to their sexual partners."

Read the article in Plusnews.

Empower women in Malawi

Sandra Mapemba, national condom programme coordinator at the Reproductive Health Unit (RHU) in the Ministry of Health in Malawi, believes the female condom will empower women to have more control in their sexual relationships, help them protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV, as well as unwanted pregnancies.