Developing effective and youth-friendly community-based reproductive health services for rural youth in Zimbabwe

Alford Phiri, Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council
Annabel Erulkar, Population Council

The project used a quasi-experimental design. Altogether, 793 youth (10-24 years) were interviewed during the baseline survey (1997) while 835 youth were interviewed at endline (2003). The objective of the evaluation was to determine whether the intervention was associated with changes in the RH behaviour of youth in Magunje (experimental site). Binary logistic regression was run on baseline and endline survey data for the experimental and comparison sites. Between 20% and 39% of youth in Magunje were aware of the project components at endline. Exposure to various IEC materials was between 27% to 40%. The proportion of males who had never had sex increased from 69% to 73% between surveys. Corresponding proportions for females were 90% and 91%. Use of contraception among sexually experienced youth increased from 56% (1997) to 80% (2003). Generally, the project was significantly associated with observed positive RH behaviour changes among youth in the experimental site.