Ensuring Safe Abortion Provision at the Local Level—Madhesh Province, Nepal

ing with the media so that members of the This included municipalities not budgeting press could be informed about the Madhesh Some of the recommendations that came Province guidelines and the substance of directly from the workshops include: fully the discussions. [...] The timing of the media implement the new province-level guide- event likely added to the momentum of lines for Madhesh; prepare municipality- the finalization of the Madhesh guidelines: level action plans; allocate adequate local Just two weeks later, the Madhesh Ministry resources to safe abortion services; increase of Health and Population approved them, monitoring to ensure continued accredita. [...] the law and the dangers of unsafe abortion; and combat sex-selective abortion by fully The specific commitments made by partici- complying with the National Strategy for pants in the workshops fall into three major Ending Gender-Biased Sex Selection.12 areas of abortion services in the province: The recently approved abortion care guide- Funding provider training. [...] Closely viders reduced the availability of safe abor- following them is key to addressing many tion services are supported by the data: Just of the practical issues that emerged in the over half of the 15 abortion care training workshops. [...] The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the donors.