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In recent years across the world there has been a growing realisation that men need to be more involved in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) programmes and debates in order for them to be more effective. In September 2003, USAID’s Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) organised a conference on "Reaching men to improve reproductive health for all" in collaboration with EngenderHealth, PATH and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) to review various initiatives aimed at engaging men in sexual health issues. Produced by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, this paper reports on the conference.

The conference aimed to identify programmes that have succeeded in engaging men in sexual health issues in ways that have improved the health of the whole family. The paper presents the background of the conference before discussing the conceptual frameworks that served as its basis. It goes on to review the various models and approaches discussed during the meeting before highlighting lessons and recommendations on concrete, effective initiatives for working with men in reproductive health.

The paper highlights the tensions between attempting to appeal to men through the use of traditional gender roles and the need to address strategic gender transformations in the longer term, finding that:

• Peer education and initiatives with an emphasis on improving men’s accessibility and increasing men’s demands for sexual health services were frequently identified as the preferred strategy for reaching men with information about services and SRH education;
• There is a need to work with men on their own concerns about sexual health in order to engage them effectively in any kind of debate;
• There is much value in working with men as "allies" towards the goals of improved SRH and gender equity as this will also ensure that funding for work with women is not sacrificed for work with men;
• Very little is done at either programmatic or policy levels to address issues of violence between genders.

Following the above conclusions, the report advises that:

• The involvement of men in SHR programmes needs to be improved through advocating a more supportive policy environment, hiring more male staff and training service providers to be more responsive to the range of men’s SRH needs. Services could also be taken to where men are, for instance the workplace.
• While men need to be held accountable for their decisions and actions as regards sexual health, spaces need to be created where such decisions can be explained and discussed so that new attitudes can be developed.
• There has to be more training for SRH service providers on issues of violence and abuse, and SRH and anti-violence services should develop closer partnerships and referral networks to advocate changes in law and policy to end the silence about violence. Partnerships also need to be strengthened among various agencies that deal with SRH issues.
• There is a strong need to develop project documentation and impact evaluation data to secure sustained funding of SRH programmes working with men, especially at a time when macro-economic policies seem to endanger the future of SRH programmes.

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