UNFPA and the Ministry of Health and Population’s Family Planning Sector held two training sessions on the automated programme for indicators' registration and analysis for family planning clinics’ accreditation system (Al-Wessam) in Alexandria, funded by the European Union.

Alexandria will be the first governorate to apply the automated quality system.

The trainings were attended by 30 family planning service providers, statisticians and Monitoring and Evaluation specialists.

Al-Wessam is an accreditation system where family planning units across Egypt are assessed based on a set of indicators and criteria set by the Ministry of Health and Population, and awarded based on their score.

The criteria includes having a sufficient stock of two to three months of basic contraceptive methods, provision of correct information during counselling by doctors and nurses, provision of safe family planning services in accordance with standards of practice, and the increase in the number of beneficiaries, among others.

Once awarded, the clinic keeps the award for one year as long as it continues to maintain the set standards. It is then nominated for monetary rewards should it keep it for a full year.

This comes as part of the “EU support of Egypt's National Population Strategy,” with the support of an EU-grant of 27 Million Euros.

The project aims at increasing the use of voluntary, rights-based family planning through improved supply of family planning services and commodities, increased demand for family planning, and enhanced governance for implementation of the National Population Strategy. It will ultimately benefit Egyptians of reproductive age who will have more choices regarding the size of their families, as well as the timing and spacing of children.