Challenges to integrating sexual health issues into reproductive health programs in Uzbekistan

This study examines the direction and result of efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the area of reproductive and sexual health in Uzbekistan. It focuses specifically on the institutional, structural, epidemiological, and cultural forces responsible for the exclusion of sexual health issues from reproductive health campaigns in the most populous Central Asian country. In Uzbekistan, as in other countries of the region, significant international support was given to NGOs providing reproductive health services in the mid-to-late-1990s, well into the early period of the HIV/ AIDS pandemic and after the 1994 mandate of the International Conference on Population and Development for the inclusion of sexual health as a key reproductive health component. Examining the exclusion of sexual health issues from reproductive health campaigns in Uzbekistan highlights problems relating to time lags in program and evaluative development and the difficulties NGOs experienced in balancing donor-state agendas with recipient-state priorities. Findings question standard assumptions regarding the advantageous structural aspects of NGOs, in terms of flexibility, responsive agenda generation, and state independence.