JARCHOW... The UNFPA will work with a number of partners to ensure that the programme achieves its objectives

CONFRONTED with the worrying reality that most adolescents shun contraceptives and teenage girls account for near a quarter of all births in Jamaica, the Government last Friday welcomed an injection of J$100-million by the European Union (EU) into the island's Sexual and Reproductive Health programme.

According to Gerd Jarchow, who heads the European Commission in Jamaica, the money will allow the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to give Jamaica technical assistance, research, training, capacity building and the purchase of equipment and pharmaceutical products.

"The UNFPA will work with a number of partners, inclusive of NGOs and government to ensure that the programme achieves its objectives," Jarchow said at a ceremony in Kingston at which representatives of the European Commission (EC), UNFPA, Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), and National Family Planning Board signed off on the programme.

UNFPA representative for the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean, Hetty Sarjeant, said Jamaica was among 10 nations chosen because almost a quarter of all its births are to teenage girls, and there was low contraceptive use among adolescents, with studies showing that 40 per cent of sexually active girls aged 15-19 years are not using condoms. In addition, there was early initiation of sexual intercourse.

"The signing of this agreement marks the culmination of an extensive gestation period of consultation and negotiation with stakeholders," said Sarjeant. "This now gives the greenlight for our partner agencies such as the Women's Centre of Jamaica Foundation, the National Centre for Youth and Development, Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities, and Fathers Inc to implement the project."

The UNFPA is the lead organisation responsible for implementing the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994.

Dr Olivia McDonald, executive director of the National Family Planning Board, the agency with responsibility for implementing the programme, said "the ultimate goal of Jamaica's national population policy is to improve the satisfaction of basic human needs and the quality of life of the Jamaican people in areas such as housing, health and nutrition, education, transportation and the environment".

However, she advised that the realisation of this was highly dependent on the achievement of several quantitative and qualitative goals, and the one to which the family planning programme will contribute is the achievement of replacement fertility.

She said that a comparison of data published by the United Nations Population Division indicates that in regions that have achieved replacement fertility (the number of children per couple to maintain the population at a steady level), none has as high an adolescent fertility rate as Jamaica, which in 1997 recorded 112 births per 1,000 women in the 15-19 age group .

"This underscores the importance of targeted interventions for adolescents which represents 20 per cent of the total population of Jamaica," McDonald said.

The activities of the project, she added, will complement the objectives of the Ministry of Health's current strategic plan for reproductive health and will also help the ministry realise its Millennium Development Goals, which seek to promote social and economic development.

PIOJ Director-General Dr Wesley Hughes, who signed on behalf of the Government, expressed Jamaica's appreciation for the programme which, he said, would address some of the most urgent needs of our adolescent and youth population.

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