"In Harare, we have jointly created the nucleus of what in the future may become a
large fraternity of dynamic and visionary health professionals." O.A. Ladipo, Closing
Session, East and Southern Africa Regional MAQ Workshop
Nearly one year ago, from January 30–February 4, 1994, many of you formed
delegations of policy makers, health care professionals, and advocates for women's
reproductive health from six countries (Botswana, Kenya, the Republic of South Africa,
Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe) and gathered in
Harare, Zimbabwe, to address the Maximizing Access and Quality (MAQ) initiative at the
regional and national level. For five labor-intensive days, you worked in both plenary and
small group sessions to identify medical barriers (both to specific contraceptive methods
and to service delivery) and to identify solutions to those barriers. You returned to your
home countries with country action plans in hand, prepared to champion the MAQ initiative
at the national and local levels.
Much has been accomplished since the meeting in Harare. National MAQ events, such as a
national medical barriers workshop in Zimbabwe and two family planning leadership
conferences in Botswana, have been held. Revisions are being made to Botswana's Family
Planning General Policy Guidelines and service standards according to the latest technical
information. In Zimbabwe, a national medical barriers task force has been formed and
medical barriers have been identified for revision of family planning service
guidelines, procedures and policies. Many more MAQ events are planned. For example,
Kenya's National Family Planning Service Delivery Norms, scheduled for review this year,
will be revised and used to update training curricula and increase training quality at
district training centers.
Health and Human Resources for Africa (HHRAA)/Support for Analysis and Research in
Africa (SARA) and JHPIEGO's MAQ Task Force congratulate all of you on your many successes.
We are very pleased to send you this first of three issues of the Maximizing
Access and Quality (MAQ) Bulletin for East and Southern Africa. Included in this
issue are highlights of in-depth follow-up interviews conducted with workshop delegates in
Botswana and Zimbabwe, results of a six-month workshop follow-up questionnaire, and MAQ
success stories from East and Southern Africa and from other regions of the world. We hope
that you will share news of these successes with your colleagues to encourage further
endeavors. Also included, as a technical update, is an article describing the World Health
Organization's new classification system for the initiation of selected contraceptive
methods which can be adapted for use in individual country settings.
We hope that you will make this your bulletin. Your suggestions for future Bulletin
articles are most welcome.
Sandra de Castro Buffington, Chair, MAQ Task Force
JHPIEGO
