Helping to improve Reproductive Health in Turkey

What is UNFPA doing to help ?

UNFPA has supported population programmes in Turkey since 1971. Since then it has supported the Government of Turkey and NGOs in a wide variety of activities, many of which are directly related to reproductive health.

Initiatives taken so far have included:

• Increasing the accessibility and improving the quality of integrated RH services
• Developing adolescent RH services addressing educational and counseling needs of young people
• Strengthening political commitment and mobilizing resources to implement the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action
• Providing information to monitor progress of this implementation

In addition, UNFPA has institutionalized male involvement in reproductive health through a project with the Turkish Armed Forces and the Ministry of Health. Every year, approximately, 500,000 soldiers are trained on family planning, reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS .

For young people and adolescents, UNFPA's Youth Peer Education projects are proving increasingly popular across Turkey. In these projects, motivated and well informed young people can pass on accurate and helpful information to those of similar ages and backgrounds.

The Turkish YPEER programmes mostly cover sexual and reproductive health sexual and reproductive health education , prevention of HIV/AIDS and STIs, prevention of substance abuse, sexual orientation and relationships, protection against violence , gender issues and children's rights, peace education and abstinence. The target groups are mostly university and high school students

Ongoing activities:

In its current programme for Turkey, UNFPA plans to support improvements in four areas of reproductive health:

• Increased access to quality reproductive health services for all women and men, enabling them to exercise their reproductive rights . To achieve this, UNFPA will assist with the training of managers and service providers, including new family doctors. The Fund will also develop strategies for parts of the population which are under-served, such as the disabled or elderly or people living in remote areas. UNFPA will also help to improve the emergency reproductive health services.

• Increased access for young people to information and youth-friendly services about sexual and reproductive health . To do this, UNFPA will help to establish youth-friendly services in selected provinces and at universities. The Fund will also expand the curriculum and outreach of activities to involve men in reproductive health . UNFPA will also promote peer education and other awareness-raising activities for young people and advocate for young people to be involved in the design and implementation of projects which affect them.

• Access of expectant mothers in under-served areas to prenatal, natal and post-natal care so as to reduce under five and maternal mortality . To achieve this, UNFPA will support the development of emergency obstetric care services in all areas. It will also help to increase public awareness about perinatal care.

• Better access for all to information and services for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS . With this goal, UNFPA will help to strengthening national and local capacity to prevent diagnose and treat STIs. It will help with aware-ness raising, training uniformed personnel and holding media workshops etc.

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