Suchergebnisse

This study examines the behavioral, sociocultural, economic, programmatic, and legal factors that aggravate Egyptian women's vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS. The study concludes that in low-prevalence settings like Egypt, targeted interventions are the most strategic and cost-effective: for example, HIV awareness-raising with a special focus on the preventive role of consistent, correct condom use, and creating a cadre of peers that could provide psychosocial support and HIV counseling to migrant workers. Furthermore, premarital and antenatal care programs should include HIV awareness-raising and provider-initiated counseling and testing after screening of women to identify those at risk for HIV infection. Concurrently, efforts should be made to empower women (e.g., through microloans or vocational training) as well as addressing inequitable gender norms and revisiting legislation and policies that discriminate against women and exacerbate their vulnerability to HIV.

The recent increase in Egypt's total fertility rate, along with stalling contraceptive rates and persistent unmet need for family planning (FP), highlights a need to explore new venues for providing FP services. The specific objectives of this study are to determine the size, scope, and scale of private-sector FP providers (private physicians, nongovernmental organization clinics, and private pharmacies); examine the policy and regulatory environment for private provision of FP products and services; and assess business, financing, and training needs of the private health sector and the potential for expanding its role in FP service provision. To improve current trends in contraceptive uptake and provide expanded service delivery and contraceptive options for Egyptian couples, the report proposes a number of recommendations. These could strengthen the role of the private sector as it complements the government's current and planned efforts to meet population demand for contraception.

Following a period of relatively rapid decline in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Egyptian fertility decline slowed down during the later part of the 1990s. The main objective of the Slow Fertility Transition (SFT) project was to better understand the current slow pace of fertility decline in Egypt and to identify policies that can facilitate decline to replacement level. This project investigated attitudes toward childbearing and, in particular, receptivity to the two-child family. The SFT project re-interviewed a subsample of 3,286 currently married women who had been interviewed in the 2003 EIDHS. Two further samples were also interviewed in 2004: a sample of unmarried women and men aged 18–29 (917 women and 945 men) selected from the EIDHS household sample. With the successful completion of the data collection and data processing phase, according to this report the priorities of the second phase were to complete scientifically sound and policy-relevant analysis of the SFT data, to ensure that the findings are effectively disseminated to key audiences in Egypt, and to identify policies and programs that would help the Egyptian government achieve replacement-level fertility by 2017.

In Egypt, the legal, religious, and societal restrictions on abortion have constrained the provision of high-quality emergency health care services provided to postabortion patients, including links with family planning (FP) services. In 1994, a small-scale pilot study was conducted by the Egyptian Fertility Care Society and the Population Council's ANE OR/TA Project (1995) to improve postabortion care in Egypt. The study intervention included an intensive training program for physicians on the use of Manual Vacuum Aspiration instruments under local anesthesia. Physicians were also instructed in infection-control practices and counseling postabortion patients about their medical condition and FP. The study findings reflected significant improvements in the care of postabortion patients. The positive impact of this pilot study led the Population Council's ANE OR/TA Project to develop a comprehensive Introduction Program for Improved Postabortion Care in Egypt which was approved by the Government of Egypt. As noted in this report, one major component of this program is expanding the improved postabortion care services based on experiences gained in the pilot study.

In response to the needs of adolescent girls in Egypt for improved schooling, health, and livelihood prospects, Ishraq (sunrise)—a multidimensional program for 12–15-year-old out-of-school girls—was launched in 2001 by the Population Council in collaboration with CEDPA, Save the Children, Caritas, and local nongovernmental organizations. The program combined traditional tested program elements (literacy, life skills, nutrition) with more innovative ones (sports, financial education). It focused on building a multilayered platform to support and institutionalize the program by educating and mobilizing communities around issues of importance to adolescent girls; forging partnerships between international NGOs, government institutions, and local NGOs; and building capacities of local facilitators and partners to implement the program. This report identifies ways to continue expanding Ishraq, for which community demand remains high, including a new generation of girls' programs to support graduates in exercising their rights and becoming active members of the community; and notes many important lessons on recruitment strategy, program structure and implementation, capacity-building, and partnerships.

After years of steady decline, Egypt experienced an increase in the total fertility rate (TFR) from 3.0 births per woman in 2008 to 3.5 in 2014, which was coupled with an increase in desired family size among young people. To better understand this increase in fertility as well as prospects for change, the Evidence Project/Population Council conducted secondary analyses of quantitative data from the Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) and the Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) and collected qualitative data from young people and key informants. This report examines the changes in fertility preferences and behaviors among young people aged 15–34, identifies key drivers of the increase in fertility, assesses prospects for change including challenges and opportunities, and proposes recommendations for targeted and sustainable interventions addressing increased fertility among young people in Egypt. Findings suggest that key drivers of increased fertility include decreased use of family planning (FP) among married women with two or more children, a shift towards use of short acting FP methods, and increased contraceptive discontinuation. These factors may be due in part to decreased exposure to FP messages, declines in quality of family planning counseling, and socioeconomic, political, and programmatic changes that Egypt went through between 2008 and 2014. These findings and additional insights will be useful to policymakers, program designers, and health care professionals in addressing increased fertility and delivering more effective voluntary FP services in Egypt.