Social protection; a Critical

enabler for ASRH interventions

in Uganda
 Background
There are a lot of literature on evidences of high impact
Biological, social and economic interventions for HIV and SRH.
Social protection has been proven as both critical enabler and
development synergy for ASRH/HIV, especially for adolescents.

Social protection refers to all public and private initiatives that provide income
or consumption transfer to the poor. It aims to protect the vulnerable against
livelihood risk (UNAIDS 2015).Social protection is more than cash transfer.
Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced dramatic increase in social
protection programs from 25 programs in 9 countries in 2000 to
over 240 programs in 41 counties by 20121.
 Justification

There is growing consensus that a combination of social and structural

approaches including social protection interventions enhances HIV
prevention and treatment[1].
According to UDHS (2011) young women and men in:
Multiple concurrent sexual relationship (women 2.1%, men 8.9%)
Transactional sex (4.2% men had ever paid, a large proportion women have
been paid sex.
Cross generational sex (13% young women15-19) had sex with men 10+ years
older than them.
sexual relationship driven by perceived economic gain, mostly for adolescent
girls.
child marriage; 10% women and men get married before the age of 15, and by
18, nearly 40% already married.
Programs that delays like keeping children in school reduces the risk to SRH and HIV.
 Methodology:
Data was extracted from 6 project reports and was
synthesized and further analyzed.
Additional Primary data from NTIHC was utilized for a
case study to contextualize social protection in Uganda.
1. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of
utilizing service as a result of exposure to a form of
social protection program
1. Difference in Differences (DD) was used as the major
analytical tool to quantify the impact of (SYOFS)
intervention on service utilization.
 Result
Social protection programs were significantly associated
with uptake of ASRH/HIV services (OR:2.28; 95% CI,
p=0.001).
incentivized ASRH/ HIV project by NTIHC implemented in
central region in Uganda indicated increased service
utilization by over 80% between 2011 and 20152.
MH project in Kaabong and Kotido districts in Northern
Uganda showed a significant increase in attendance to ANC
services and increased delivery in health facility3.
FP Voucher intervention of Marie Stopies Uganda4,
indicated a significant increase in uptake family planning
method.
Result: Social Protection intervention; case study
of SYOFS intervention, on service utilization
376533
340916

252916
246,767
233,642
183,320

82265 129,766
107,274
59,815
26440 69,596
11,956 22,450
14,484
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15

intervention (A) no intervention (B) difference (A-B)

 Conclusion:
•Social protection interventions highly increases the
likelihood for ASRH service uptake and utilization by
adolescents; most important for adolescent. The
study of NTIHC indicated about 4.2 times increased
likelihood.
•Social protection potentially reduces opportunity
gap in ASRH service utilization. The DiD analysis with
NTIHC data showed about 24% would have missed
any service if the project was not implemented
during that period.