The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is the world's largest international non-governmental organization advocating for sexual rights, and providing quality reproductive health care including family planning information and services. The IPPF European Network Field Office for Central Asia opened in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1996. The Field Office’s purpose is to improve the capacity of local and national governments and non-governmental organizations to work together as partners to make a difference in individual lives and public spheres of women, men, and those who are socially excluded, particularly young people.

Between 1996 and 1999, the IPPF Field Office implemented a multi-component project aimed at improving sexual and reproductive health services in Central Asia primarily through collaboration with NGOs for the longer-term purpose of developing Family Planning Associations to serve as platforms to advocate for sexual and reproductive rights. During the first phase of this project, a new curricula for the training of medical and health professionals, involving The John Hopkins University Program for International Education in Reproductive Health, was adapted and developed.. All Central Asian countries, with the exception of Turkmenistan, have now formally adopted the revised curricular components as national standards. As a result of this project, the training of medical and health professionals throughout Central Asia now covers multiple contraceptive methods, including voluntary surgical contraception and infection prevention, as well as quality of care issues.

The major outcome of the project was the consolidation of NGO networking and alliance building. In this process, IPPF-EN has had the opportunity to interact with all types of NGOs based in Central Asia’s capital cities as well as rural areas, with women’s groups, young people’s organizations, human rights based groups and health related groups. In some countries where lead NGOs did not have a national reach, consortiums were formed with a view to recognizing representative bodies in each country. Program development is now centered around strategic planning, financial accountability and managerial transparency, resource mobilization and sustainability, sexuality advocacy and sex education, gender issues, greater youth involvement in institutional decision making, and work with marginalized groups.

The purpose of an association, as an NGO, is to serve as a catalyst for change and lead by example. The NGO sector and the concepts of associations and voluntarism is maturing in this region. These NGOs will be at the forefront in countering a lack of understanding of the role and relevance of the NGO sector with regard to sexual rights, quality reproductive health care as well as family planning information and services. In more open societies like those developing in Central Asia, NGOs and associations are bound to multiply greatly. However there is serious concern about diverse membership, a national profile, election of boards, separation of roles between staff and volunteers, and between government service and individual functions in NGOs. Effective governance and accountable management within NGOs is the crucial challenge this sector now faces if it is to win the trust of the public whose interests it should represent first and foremost in the evolving democratic process. IPPF-EN will continue to provide technical assistance both from its Brussels and Almaty offices.

Dr. Alfiya Shamsutdinova, Program Officer, IPPF-EN Field Office for Central Asia.