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ADVOCACY MESSAGE

At the International Platform Meeting in Amsterdam all the participants agreed upon a joint advocacy message:

More female condoms and better programming for prevention now!
The female condom is the only female-initiated prevention method that provides dual protection—against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Yet, the female condom is not widely promoted or used. In a world where 200 million women have no access to contraceptives and one third of all pregnancies are unintended (and many unwanted),  this is unacceptable. With no progress on maternal mortality and 61% of all new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa among women, the female condom offers women a live saving dual prevention method.

Making the female condom available, accessible and affordable to all!

Female condom use is able to vastly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. Nevertheless, the female condom has largely been neglected as a dual-prevention method. This is due to a variety of reasons, specifically:
1.    The widespread misconceptions of the female condom
2.    The weak supply chain and stock-outs
3.    The lack of variety in existing female condoms
4.    The current price of the female condom

First, the product has an image problem. As in the early years of male latex condoms, the public knows little about female condoms and is therefore resistant to using them. Studies have shown that the female condom is highly acceptable to people once they have used it, and show acceptance levels ranging from 41% to 95%.   . There is a strong need to present the product in a positive light to Ministries of Health and other policy makers, donor agencies, the retail sector, and to potential users.

Second, in order to provide women with the actual possibility of using female condoms, an increased and steady supply is needed. In 2007 donors purchased 200 male condoms for every 1 female condom. In addition to more supplies, supply chains need to function more properly. Female condom programs that have been implemented tend to run out of stock quickly.  If women cannot rely on the availability of the product at the time they need it, they will lose confidence in the method.

Third, the market for the female condom is currently dominated by a single product. More variety of female condoms promises to increase the overall demand for the female condom. To achieve variety, greater efforts are needed to:
-    Put in place international standards to assure quality
-    Bring to market female condom models currently under development
-    Document commercial viability of and demand for female condoms

Fourth, the current price with recent resources available does not enable large-scale procurement and programming.  Besides the increase in overall demand due to variety, also large scale country programming is expected to increase demand. An increasing demand, leads to economies of scale and potential further price reductions.


Our joint demands:
Make Female Condoms Available, Accessible and Affordable

To underline the urgent need to achieve universal access to female condoms for all women and men, the members of the International Platform Meeting adopted the following recommendations.
We call upon ourselves, our NGO colleagues, and policy makers at all levels, to break down the barriers that prevent universal access to female condoms by:
 
     Advocating for comprehensive female condom programming with governments and international organizations. By 2015,  every female condom program must be comprehensive, meaning that it will include solid supply-chain management in addition to a large scale demand creation component; the female condom should be accessible for all ages.
     Advocating for sufficient budget allocations and donor funds—12 million US$— for further research and development on the female condom, so that more female condom products will be made available in the market;
     Advocating for resource mobilization for comprehensive female condom programming;
     Working towards price reduction of the female condom by  increasing variety, demand and economies  of scale, so that the price will decrease to 0,20 US$ per piece by 2011;
     Debunking the current misconceptions of the product by actively sharing information on the female condom with a broad audience, including donor agencies, policy makers, and potential users. For more information, please contact:
 
Ilze Smit
i.smit@wpf.org
Advocacy Officer UAFC Joint Programme
World Population Foundation

Lucie van Mens
Lucie.van.Mens@oxfamnovib.nl
Programme Coordinator
UAFC Joint Programme

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