Mozambique

New Program in 2009

Establishing effective family planning programs in Mozambique is a challenge.  On the positive side, after years of debilitating civil war the country has been at peace for a decade, a prospect that “fills us with light,” in the words of one resident.  The percentage on the population with access to modern health care grew significantly over the last decade, and almost half of childbirths now occur in healthcare institutions where the maternal mortality rate is far lower than the national average.

However, Mozambique remains one of the ten poorest countries in the world.  Modern contraceptive prevalence is a very low 12 percent, and only 60 percent of women have knowledge of any method of family planning.  The average woman in Mozambique has six children, and the majority of women give birth at least once by the age of 20.

HIV/AIDS is a serious problem in Mozambique.  The prevalence of AIDS among pregnant women is about 12 percent, and if the HIV/AIDS incidence rate does not decline, Mozambique’s already low average life expectancy (about 44 years for women and 42 years for men) will drop over the next ten years.

In 2009, DKT is establishing a family planning program in Mozambique led by Jeff Seed.  Following an 18-year career in CARE and several experimental HIV/AIDS projects in Africa, he opened DKT’s office in Maputo, the capital, in mid-2008.

DKT’s family planning program is now underway in Mozambique. The first sales of IUDs took place in April of 2009, and DKT began selling condoms and misoprostol through an energetic social marketing campaign by the end of the year. DKT-Mozambique also began marketing oral contraceptives and manual vacuum aspiration kits. In 2009, DKT’s new program provided 12,199 CYPs.