Member Associations

The Association Congolaise pour le Bien-Etre Familial (ACBEF) opened its doors for the first time in 1987. Then it was a small operation dedicated to attending to the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of the urban poor. 25 years later, ACBEF reaches out to the whole country through a network of over 100 community-based distributors (CBDs) backed by static clinics and permanent staff. In addition, ACBEF relies on over 1,000 volunteers, including fully-trained peer educators and a Youth Action Movement.  ACBEF provides a comprehensive range of services covering integrated family planning, voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), prevention and management of HIV and AIDS, post-abortion care, antenatal and post-natal care, youth-friendly education and information projects, contraceptive and laboratory services. Stigma and taboos around HIV and AIDS are strong in Congo, and ACBEF is engaged in major re-education and sensitization on this front. ACBEF aims its work at a wide public, with particular emphasis on young people (aged 25 and under), internally displaced people, sex workers and women of child-bearing age. Work occurs in both rural and urban areas. With high visibility in the national media, ABCEF is making major inroads in SRH in a very difficult environment. ABCEF works in close partnership with the government’s ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, and Gender, and with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Jeunesse Action Sida. ABCEF receives financial support from the European Union, UNFPA and the Congolese Government.  

The National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) is a teaching, research and assistance institution in the area of sexualities. CENESEX was founded on December 28, 1988, when the first resolution on the creation of the institution was issued. Later, other legal norms have specified its social purpose. It was created as an institution of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), but it is the result of the institutionalization process of a previous experience, that of the National Working Group on Sex Education (GNTES), which was created in 1972 at the initiative of Vilma Espín as president of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), and whose main objective was to develop and monitor the implementation of the National Sex Education Program. Open to scientific research, exchange of experiences and dialogue of knowledge, CENESEX has professionals of recognized prestige from different scientific disciplines that address, with a comprehensive approach, the study of sexualities.   Twitter Instagram