Côte d’Ivoire

Background

In Côte d’Ivoire, approximately 3 out of 10 adolescents (15-19 years) have started to have children. Although the law sets the minimum age for marriage at 18 years old for women, more than one-third (36%) of women are married before age 18 and 12% of women are married before age 15. Half of men have had sex for the first time before age 17 and half of women have had sex for the first time before they reach the age 19.

Although 93% of women know at least one modern method of contraception, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate remains low—13.9% of all women of reproductive age, 11.9% of adolescents (15-19 years), and 16.9% of young women (20-24 years) are using modern contraception. These statistics are exacerbated by insufficient health system resources and a recent history of conflict.

Faced with this situation, Côte d’Ivoire's government has taken measures to improve the health of adolescents and youth, including the “Zero Pregnancy at School” campaign, and the development of the national Costed Implementation Plan for Family Planning and Strategic Plan for Adolescent and Youth Health. However, gaps persist in the availability and the quality of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. Several groups of adolescents and youth, in particular—rural and out-of-school youth—are poorly serviced in terms of sexual and reproductive health information and services.

National AYSRH workshop

In November 2016, E2A, Pathfinder International, and AgirPF Project partnered with the Côte d’Ivoire Ministry of Health to organize a national workshop on adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH). The meeting joined key ministries involved in AYSRH, civil society, youth leaders, and development partners to reflect on how to advance evidence-based AYSRH practices in Côte d’Ivoire. The workshop resulted in a set of recommendations for improving AYSRH, including increasing access to, and strengthening quality of youth-friendly contraceptive services.

Postpartum family planning services for youth

Building on the government’s energy toward strengthening the quality of youth-friendly contraceptive services, E2A is collaborating with Pathfinder International to design and document youth-focused postpartum family planning services. The services, which will be offered in health facilities in Agnéby-Tiassa-Mé, will scale up an effective model for delivering postpartum family planning services implemented by the National Maternal and Child Health Program and the University Hospital of Treichville from 2013 to 2016. The model was used in maternity wards to provide immediate postpartum family planning counseling and services.

E2A and Pathfinder aim to achieve three main objectives:

• Increase the capacity of health providers to offer quality family planning counseling during antenatal care visits, including for adolescents and young women, and a full range of postpartum family planning options.
• Strengthen the capacity of health facilities to offer postpartum family planning services, including immediate postpartum family planning.
• Ensure that communities in the health facility catchment areas are well informed about family planning services, including postpartum family planning.
• Contribute to evidence related to applying systematic approaches to scale-up for expanding access to postpartum family planning services.