Abandoning FGC

Ababa, August 25 – September 5, 2003ommunicating

Organization (WHO) sponsored a meeting on female genital cutting

(FGC) for representatives of 10 African countries. During

the meeting, participants identified a need for training in

policy-level communication and advocacy. To address this need,

the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) supported a two-week

regional policy communication workshop. The workshop, Abandoning

FGC: Communicating Information and Better Practices to Policymakers,

was conducted August 25-September 5, 2003 in Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia, in collaboration with the National Committee on

Traditional Practices of Ethiopia (NCTPE), and CARE/Ethiopia.

The workshop was sponsored by the USAID Bureau for Global

Health through PRB’s MEASURE Communication project and by

currently used in PRB’s regional policy communication training

program, focusing on policy-level communication, as opposed

to community-level advocacy, and was intended to help local

program officials reach high-level policy audiences. Sessions

helped participants identify the policy and program implications

of available information, understand how research findings

and information can influence the policy process, explore

how to present sensitive information using culturally appropriate

messages, and communicate these messages in simple and compelling

formats. The primary goal of the workshop was to help participants

increase the use of available data and information on better

practices for establishing or improving policies to abandon

program officials, and policy advisors from seven Anglophone

African countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Kenya,

Nigeria and Sudan) in strategic planning and communication

skills to improve FGC abandonment policies and programs. The

group consisted of key individuals who are directly involved

in promoting or implementing FGC abandonment programs or who

are in positions to influence high-level decisionmakers on

this issue. This included: representatives of national FGC

“focal point groups;” national government staff

from the Ministry of Health; journalists responsible for disseminating

information on FGC; representatives of national committees

for harmful traditional practices and the Inter-African Committee

(IAC); researchers and project managers from USAID contracting

small group sessions, and individual work, emphasizing hands-on

participation. Sessions covered nine main areas:

· Exploring barriers to abandoning FGC and promoting

alternatives to the practice

· Fundamentals of the policy process

· Exploring the research-policy gap and designing policy-relevant

research

· Developing a framework for action

· Developing communication strategies and action plans

· Working with the media

· Preparing policy memoranda and briefings

· Making effective oral presentations using PowerPoint

· Site visit to Awash: On Saturday, August 30th, CARE/Ethiopia

arranged a site visit to the Afar region to the CARE/Ethiopia’s

Afar FGC Eradication Project site. Here participants visited

the Awash-Fentale district, which consists of 29 rural communities

with the Awash town as its capital. CARE/Ethiopia arranged

a town hall meeting in which participants and men, women and

children from the community were able to meet to discuss FGC,

barriers to FGC abandonment, and changes occurring in their

communities.

· Visit to Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital: In response

to participants’ requests, PRB scheduled a visit to the Addis

Ababa Fistula Hospital on Friday afternoon, September 5th.

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has served over 20,000 women

since 1974, and has become a major teaching institution for

surgeons all over Ethiopia and the developing world. Participants

toured the hospital ward, operating theater, therapy department,

hostels and facility grounds through a guided tour with hospital

positive about the workshop content, the quality of the materials,

and the anticipated long-term benefits. All participants gave

specific examples of how the workshop would contribute to

their work at home. Ideas ranged from increasing individual

skills, such as increasing work with the news media and making

effective presentations of research results, to training other

IAC staff in PowerPoint. During a mid-workshop assessment,

participants stated that they felt “empowered” and

“active” and that the workshop was “participatory”,

“highly organized,” and that they were “impressed

with the workshop materials and resources available.”

In the final workshop evaluation, on a scale of 1 (not informative

or useful) to 5 (very informative or useful), only 1 out of

evaluations that the workshop should be reproduced in other

countries and that other participants could benefit from similar

workshops of its kind PRB is planning to seek funding to replicate

the workshop in Anglophone or Francophone Africa or the MENA