Ipas Ethiopia has provided tremendous support to MoH in expanding access to CAC and CC services. This includes establishing clinical training centers, , provision of TOT for master trainers , training and follow-up of health care providers, providing catchment based clinical mentorship, , orientation of program managers , and strengthening SRH supplies and commodities,
Ipas Ethiopia collaborates with the public health system (the ministry of health, regional health bureaus, zonal health departments, woreda health offices and health facilities), the private health sector, higher learning institutions, international and local non-governmental organizations, and professional associations to shape the abortion and contraception ecosystem. so that abortion and contraception information and services are available, accessible, acceptable and of quality for Ethiopian Women and girls.
Health workforce and sustainable training systems – Ipas approach contributed towards meeting short, intermediate, and long term needs of health workforce to deliver CAC and CC in the country through in-service task shifting and pre-service training with standardized curriculum. In addition to the universities, that incorporated abortion care and comprehensive contraceptive service in their training curriculum, Ipas supported health centers are also serving as practicum or internship sites. Ipas manuals were adopted as a National Training Manuals and are used by various organizations. Available studies indicate that several partners including Ipas, FGAE, Engenderhealth and Mariestopes trained about 13,869 health providers since 2006. Accordingly, Ipas contributed to the training of about 66% of the health workforce providing CAC and CC services in Ethiopia.
Expanded service delivery – In less than a decade since the revised penal code, nearly 400 facilities started providing SAC, and about 90% of the providers were mid-level providers, ensuring access to SAC at primary levels. The same year a review of Ipas programmatic report indicates that about 1,095 (67%) of the national service delivery points were supported by Ipas Ethiopia. Within the Ipas targeted regions, about 73% of the SAC providing health facilities were supported by Ipas. Ipas support ranges from 50% in SNNP to 93% in Oromia regional state. Nearly 91% of the women using contraceptives (12,767,364 out of the 14,008,577 nationally) are from Ipas supported Regional States. Safe Abortion Care – there were about 3,268,559 expected pregnancies of which 229,149 or (7%) were ended by abortion (2020). The proportion is slightly higher (8%) in Ipas supported Regional States namely, Addis Ababa, Amhara, Oromia and SNNPRS. This is about 230,000 women receiving abortion care services out of approximately 3.3 million expected pregnancies in the year.
Equipment and Supplies – Ipas is a pioneer in introducing majority of the critical inputs for CAC services in Ethiopia, this included both the technology and knowledge base. Since 2006, for the last two decades Ipas has been a pioneer in delivering innovative and state of the art medical technologies to increase access to safe abortion care. Accordingly, about 1,055,785 abortion technologies were provided across the country, especially Ipas targeted areas, of which 56.4% (595,685) are doses of drugs for medical abortion supplies while the rest 43.6% (460,100) are Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA) sets.
Supply chain system strengthening – in addition to partnering with orgaizations such as DKT, Ipas supported Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supplies Agency in terms of drugs and supplies management, including training on forecasting, procurement and distribution of essential CAC and CC commodities and supplies and strengthening systematic support of EPSS to health care facilities to mitigate stock-out at service delivery points.
