A bottom line training seminar of the series of events on the building partnership for better family planning services and accessible contraceptives was held in Kyiv, organized by UNFPA Office in Ukraine in partnership with USAID program "Healthy Women of Ukraine” under the auspices of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

The event gathered medical professionals, social workers and representatives of Kyiv and Zhytomyr Oblast State Administration, responsible for policy development, funding and implementation of regional programs on reproductive health, as well as the private sector and civil society representatives.

In her opening remarks UNFPA Representative for Ukraine Nuzhat Ehsan said that Ukraine is demonstrating significant progress in achieving MDG goals especially in the MDG-5 in declining maternal mortality and abortions in the country, and also improved access to reproductive health and family planning services including contraception. UNFPA Representative appraised the progress made possible due to the State program on reproductive health for the period till 2015, and in particular, its budgetary provision for specific vulnerable groups.

The participants of the workshop agreed that with, regard to reproductive health commodities, the situation in Ukraine is still not as robust as it should be and the country has the issue of sustainability and maintenance of positive trend and especially support for those women of reproductive age who belong to the vulnerable groups either because of the income status or medical reasons.

Public sector allocations even when matched by donors has covered 1/3 of estimated needs for free contraceptives among vulnerable groups in Ukraine. Other constraints that jeopardize the family planning sphere of the country and were discussed during the seminar were the affordability of contraceptives, lack of knowledge about contraceptives and somewhat difficult political environment.

In this context, the audience was presented with the total market approach (TMA) aimed at improving the situation, a practical tool meant to secure the sustainability of access towards reproductive health commodities as well as the strategy to establish private public partnerships engaging pharmaceutical companies, producers and distributing pharmacies for the provision of quality family planning services in Ukraine.

During the event, the special attention was paid to the issue of adolescent pregnancy and motherhood, the theme of SWOP Report 2013. Every year in Ukraine, 40% of young women get pregnant being younger than 20, and almost 40% of the young mothers are less than 18 yours old. 75% of adolescent pregnancy cases end up with its termination, and only 4 out of 10 mothers who are younger than 18 finish high school. The participants discussed the approaches that should be taken to decrease the amount of pregnancies among teenagers in Ukraine.