Morning Briefing

Inter Press Service explores how patriarchal tradition, cultural values, low government health spending, and a lack of access to supplies and education pose challenges to women who wish to obtain family planning services in Cote d'Ivoire. In the West African country, "family planning is widely regarded as a 'women's issue' that husbands do not have to concern themselves with," therefore, "very few men use the small number of public services on offer, while women continue to struggle to realize their sexual and reproductive rights," the news service writes. The article discusses a clinic "run by the non-governmental health organization Ivorian Association for Family Well-Being (AIBEF)," which is the "one clinic that offers family planning services free of charge" in Abidjan, the country's commercial capital (Palitza, 3/15).