Population Council Research that makes a difference

Overview

The Population Council’s work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) focuses on improving access to contraceptives and other reproductive health services. The DRC is one of the locations that the Council and UNFPA have selected for re-integrating the use of the female and male condom; the Council has pioneered a strategy to include more men in the community distribution of condoms in order to improve male access to contraceptives.

The DRC is also one of 11 countries participating in the African Forum on Emergency Contraception, or ECafrique, a network that seeks to increase the availability of high-quality emergency contraception (EC) services in Africa.

Highlights of past and present work

• Supports research, advocacy, and service-delivery interventions at the country level as a member of ECafrique, a bilingual, international network of health care and business professionals from more than 200 institutions that seeks to increase the availability of high-quality emergency contraception (EC) services in Africa.
• Assessed the benefits of adding more men to community-based distribution (CBD) programs in order to reach more men in the community and distribute more condoms.
• Identified strategies for re-integrating both the female and male condom into the national reproductive health and HIV and AIDS programs in the DRC and other West African countries.

Banner photo: © Laudes Martial Mbon/IRIN