Addressing Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in selected conflict affected districts in Amhara and Afar Regions in Ethiopia In Ethiopia climate change and conflict are the main hazard profiles affecting millions of people in the country. Based on the 2021 Ethiopia Humanitarian Needs Overview projection for the month of July- September, 23.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 8.8 million in need of health interventions and 5.3 million in need of protection services. According to IOM endorsed DTM Ethiopia Emergency Site Assessment Round 7 dataset and report collected from 1-26 June 2021, a total of 2,105,387 IDPs (449,492 households) have been found to be displaced across 377 sites in Tigray,  Amhara and Afar regions thus far. 2,036,398 IDPs (432,358 house-holds) were found in Tigray region, 49,001 IDPs (9,102 households) in Afar region and 19,988  IDPs (8,032 households) in Amhara region. However, it should be noted that the lack of access and insecurity continued to pose as challenges for this round. Moreover, DTM Ethiopia draft Site Assessment Round 26 and Village Assessment Survey Round 9 datasets which was conducted from 1 June to 9 July 2021found that 2,066,163 IDPs (378,915 households) in 1,572 IDP sites across 9 regions in Ethiopia excluding Tigray region which is exclusively covered using the Emergency Site Assessment tool. The top 4 biggest causes of displacement across these 9 regions were conflict which displaced 1,399,474 IDPs (67%), followed by drought which displaced 308,607 IDPs (15%), flash floods which displaced 157,522 IDPs (8%) and seasonal floods which displaced 112,469 IDPs (5%). The Village Assessment Survey was carried out during the same period and covered 1,180 villages across 10 regions. A total of 1,336,134 returning IDPs, 1,171 IDPs, 7,910 returned migrants and 1,223,030 host community members were tracked in villages with reported returns. The recent conflict in Afar and Amhara regions by the Tigray armed forces displaces more than 612,000 persons.

In humanitarian situations particularly in internally displaced persons and returnees women and girls mostly lacks availability of sexual and reproductive health services and related life-threatening complications of pregnancy and childbirth attributable to malnutrition that must be addressed. All women and girls in conflict affected areas must have access to a continuum of sexual and reproductive health services including, antenatal, perinatal, and postnatal and family planning services. In this project, UNFPA is planning to provide sexual and reproductive health and clinical management of rape survivor’s services through provision of emergency RH kits and deployment of midwives to the project sites health facilities to ensure the continuum of emergency SRH services. On-site orientation will also be provided to the health service providers on the proper use of emergency RH kits to provide SRH services for IDPs, returnees and surrounding host communities. UNFPA is a pipe line manager of inter-agency RH kits for the emergency response, there might be a possibility of using the emergency RH kits to the health cluster prioritized zones and districts selected for the EHF 2021 second round reserve allocation based on the emerging needs and situations. 

This programme is designed to sustain and ensure the continuum of sexual and reproductive health services to the current conflict affected IDPs/returnees and surrounding host communities response in Amhara and Afar regions and other parts of the country where most of the health facilities are dysfunctional, looted and over utilized by a large number of IDPs besides to the host communities through provision of life saving inter agency RH kits. 

Project Goal: To contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in selected IDP sites, returnees and surrounding host communities
Project Objective: To enhance availability of lifesaving reproductive health, maternal health and sexual violence services for IDPs, returnees and affected host communities