Uganda: Men Are Key to Improved Family Planning Service Delivery

In this opinion piece on gender and reproductive health (RH), the author supports studying the male role in reproductive health and decision making. She states, "To benefit both women and men, reproductive health programmes should be based on a better understanding of gender dynamics, the changing needs of individuals throughout their lives and their decision-making processes." She suggests that, though RH programmes have traditionally served women and restricted men's participation, in cultures where men are often the major resource brokers and decision makers, RH activities might better serve women if they actively involve men.


The author cites a current focus on a negative premise - men's irresponsibility - rather than a positive one of promotion of men's rights. The language of "male responsibility and involvement" has, as stated here, been criticised as judgemental, whereas, "better programmes have to develop concrete strategies to understand and incorporate the male perspective and male needs in the same way as attention is given to women's perspectives and needs....The understanding of male perspectives to reproductive health and sexuality is the starting step to set up services that respond to their needs. This will make for services that are both more culturally sensitive and cost-effective."


The article challenges RH programmes to design services for men, "or more likely, when resources are scarce, modify... existing women-oriented services to integrate men's concerns in sexual and reproductive health, making sure that confidentiality is maintained for both men and women." An approach to integrating men's needs is to educate providers in strategies for men that "benefit from the lessons learned from women's services."


The article concludes that: "There is, therefore, need to undertake wider community education so that more men can be persuaded to participate in their partners' maternity care; address infrastructural health service issues and timings of services to facilitate the involvement of working men; train more health providers to serve couples, conduct couples counselling and provide male-friendly reproductive health services."