According to a recent Maries Stopes report, the South Central region, which includes the districts of Masaka, Lyantonde, and Sembabule among others, is still struggling with a high mortality rate and a high number of teenage pregnancies.
According to Martin Sseruyange, the biostatistician for Masaka City, who presented the Marie Stopes report, there is an urgent need to raise community awareness of the significance of embracing modern contraceptive measures in order to address this situation.
In a survey was carried out in more than seven regions, encompassing more than eighty districts in Western, West Nile, North Central, South Central, Eastern, and East Central areas where the programme was implemented in the previous five years.
Over a number of years, the results indicate that Ssembabule is leading the region with 19%, up from 17% five years prior to the implementation of the Rise programme in the region. Masaka district comes in second with 18%, up from 17%, and Lyantonde follows with 17% from 16%, while Bukomansimbi trails behind at 18% among other districts.
The report did, however, demonstrate that the Rise Programme had a significant positive impact in certain localities, such as Kalangala, where the rate of adolescent pregnancies had dropped from 18% to 10% in the previous five years. In Kyotera it dropped from (20%) to (16%), Mpigi (18% to 14%), Lwengo (19% to 16%), and Wakiso (12%) to 10%.
The researchers found that the 5-year Rise programme identified a number of issues that continue to impede the uptake of family planning methods. Among other things, the programme designed various initiatives to attract these modalities and has been successful in bringing services closer to people in over 86 districts across 7 regions where it was implemented.