Updates
Jamaica: Reducing stock-outs
20 Sep 2021
Over the last decade, Jamaica’s National Family Planning Board (NFPB) in partnership with UNFPA invested almost 2 million USD in improving contraceptive choice for the entire island.
“The injection of UNFPA-sourced contraceptives into the SRH programme over the last 10 years has improved the country’s access to comprehensive, gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health services, including HIV/AIDS prevention, safe motherhood, and reproductive health commodities,” stated Lovette Byfield, Principal Director at NFPB.
The partnership has resulted in improving contraceptive choice and safety. By using domestic financing to invest in sexual and reproductive health, the country has significantly reduced stockouts of contraceptive methods. Jamaica moved from a stock-out prevalence of 85% in 2015 to 20% in 2019, according to a logistical management study.
Since 2011 the contraceptive prevalence rate (any method) on the island has been steadily increasing to 43.1% in 2021.* Through technical support and capacity-building initiatives provided by UNFPA, vital contraceptive methods are available to women who wish to access family planning services. These activities include improved contraceptive forecasting procedures, standardization of stock management records, capacity building of healthcare professionals in inventory control methods, and robust monitoring and evaluation.
Alison Drayton, Director of UNFPA Sub-Regional Office of the Caribbean in reflecting on the bond the agencies share stated "UNFPA is proud of our decades-long partnership with the NFPB and we are deeply committed to ensuring reproductive health commodity security”.
The impact is concrete: access to sexual and reproductive choices. In Jamaica, the availability of affordable and safe injectables, oral pills, intrauterine devices, implants, male and female condoms, and lubricants provides protection and expands choices for sexually active individuals irrespective of their age, gender, physical ability, and income.
* According to the United Nations Population Division.
