From 7 to 17 July, the IPPF EN Regional Director visited the IPPF Member Associations in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The visit included project site visits as well as high level meetings with government officials, partners and UN Agencies.

Central Asia is a part of the world which receives insufficient attention from the media and donors. IPPF EN has been present in the region since the late nineties and has managed to build strong member associations in each of the visited countries and Uzbekistan. The member associations have been highly successful in implementing a number of solid programmes and have remarkably improved the lives of certain pockets of the population, in particular of young people and women. However, the needs of the population remain very high as the countries are still struggling with economic crisis, high inflation rates and a badly functioning health system. Frequent electricity cuts and unsafe drinking water contribute to increased health problems and bad working conditions for health professionals who are underpaid and therefore seek their future abroad.

Kazakhstan faces an increasing dual society with very rich and very poor people. The projects run by the MA particularly address the poorest section of the population by providing safe abortion services; promoting the HPV vaccine and offering an extensive network of trainers in sexual and reproductive health.

Kyrgyzstan offers a very strong youth network providing the country with a number of peer educators. The Member Association has established two abortion clinics and is implementing a Safe Motherhood project in which it provides pre-natal training for pregnant women and works to improve the quality of services in the maternity wards.

Tajikistan is by far the poorest country with the majority of the population living in rural areas with little access to SRHR information and services. The Member Association has several projects in rural areas focusing on young people in general and in particular young sex workers, injecting drug users and labour migrants. They are also implementing the Safe Motherhood project and are on the verge of establishing a safe abortion clinic.

The governments and religious leaders in the countries are quite open to reproductive health issues and even supportive of the activities of the member associations. However, the general conditions in the country result in the governments still being dependent on donor support and the activities of the member associations and other international agencies.