Strategic assessment of reproductive health in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic

This paper presents the strategic assessment of reproductive health (RH) in the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic conducted in February-June 1999. Designed to identify RH needs within the existing delivery models and to set priorities for intervention this assessment addressed four major RH issues: maternal health birth spacing reproductive tract infections (RTIs)/sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS and adolescent health. Overall results note that there remains a need to strengthen existing RH programs in the areas of safe motherhood birth spacing RTIs/STIs and adolescent RH. The existing strategies of each of these programs need to be further developed to address the issues arising out of the strategic assessment. These findings provide a road map for long-term policy and program development towards the provision of integrated RH care. This road map can form the basis for a dialogue to build consensus for a coordinated and integrated approach to RH program development as many international agencies are collaborating with the nations government in implementing various programs for specific components of RH.