Press Releases

USAID Program Launched to Improve Private Sector Capacity of Public Health Product Delivery in Afghanistan

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, April 6, 2006—Constella Futures, the international development unit of Constella Group, today announced that it has officially launched technical operations for the Communications for Behavior Change: Expanding Access to Private Sector Health Products and Services in Afghanistan (COMPRI-A) in Kabul. The focus of this four year, $22 million dollar project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is to improve the capacity of the private sector to provide health products and services to the Afghan population.

Afghanistan, with a population of nearly 24 million people and an average child mortality rate of 257 per 1,000 births, is a country with great demand for innovative and locally relevant public health solutions. Constella Futures, in partnership with Management Sciences for Health (MSH), BearingPoint and QED Group, is working to enhance existing social marketing initiatives and to generate sustained behavior change around reproductive, maternal and child health. The ultimate goal of COMPRI-A is to establish a local, Afghan-owned and managed not-for-profit social marketing organization that continues to support a private sector network of product promoters and distributors.

“This project is an amazing opportunity to increase the Afghan populations’ access to information and essential health products and services through innovative private sector solutions,” said Courtney Bickert, director of the Center for Private Sector Solutions at Constella Futures.

Specifically, the COMPRI-A team, is working to leverage the efficiencies inherent in the commercial sector to improve health conditions in conjunction with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health.

COMPRI-A currently supports the distribution and promotion of condoms, contraceptive injectables, insecticide treated bed nets and a safe water solution. The product line will be extended to also include oral rehydration therapy, zinc and clean home delivery kits. These products are proven solutions to reducing diarrhea, tetanus and other diseases that cause high rates of maternal, infant and child mortality.

The Afghan context is certainly unique and Constella Futures, in conjunction with its partners, is dedicated to using past experience combined with research, local experts and partners to ensure that COMPRI-A activities are valuable and appropriate. This week marks the beginning of a new phase for Afghan public health – one dedicated to efficient and effective solutions.

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