Six more provinces will be supported by the United Nations Population Fund under the 7th Country Programme of Assistance to the Philippines, following the signing of letters of understanding with their governors.

The new provinces – Albay, Camarines Sur, Sarangani, Surigao del Sur, Compostela Valley and Camarines Norte – completes the programme sites for the new country programme which will be implemented from 2012 to 2016. Earlier, UNFPA entered into agreements will Mountain Province, Ifugao, Masbate, Sultan Kudarat and Eastern Samar, which were all part of the 6th Country Programme that ended 2011.

The programme sites have been selected based on various indicators, including poverty incidence, population size, reproductive health condition of the people (including maternal mortality, adolescent fertility, contraceptive prevalence and skilled birth attendance), gender development index, and the prevalence of violence against women.

The UNFPA programme focuses on value-adding upstream policy work and catalytic support in reproductive health and rights to national programmes and in the selected geographic areas anchored on local needs, contexts and political commitments.

Strategic support is focused on maternal health, family planning, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, prevention of sexually transmitted infections including HIV, local development planning and research, and prevention and management of violence against women