Reproductive Health Uganda is one of Uganda’s leading NGOs providing services related to sexual health and reproductive rights, but it now faces a number of challenges to its work, including a recent move by the United States to bring back the Mexico City policy, also known as the “global gag rule.”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 52 percent of pregnancies in Uganda are unintended, and about a quarter end in abortion annually. Meanwhile, about 8 percent of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions, said the country’s ministry of health.

RHU’s “rights-based family planning services” include a “Sayana Press learning project,” which was being supported with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development to increase learning for the provision of the injectable contraceptive by village health teams and facility-based providers.

We serve 1 million people annually across Uganda with reproductive health services. So if an institution like RHU is affected, definitely you know that it will have an impact. You will see a rise in unintended pregnancies leading to abortions.

But RHU will not comply with the “global gag rule,” which was reinstated by U.S. President Donald Trump in January and hits funding for groups seen as promoting abortion, and that has damaged the roll out of Sayana Press and some other RHU programs.

Read the full article on Reproductive Health Uganda by Amy Fallon at Devex International Development