About Us

History

NESMARK was created in September 1997 on the basis of an agreement between the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Albania and KfW, (Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau), Frankfurt, Germany. NESMARK has set up the infrastructure for the procurement, distribution and promotion of modern Family Planning products, materials and services. NESMARK’ s goal is to contribute to the improvement of the Reproductive Health Care in Albania. NESMARK works outside the government structure, but within the overall policy framework of the Ministry of Health.

What are the goals of NESMARK?

  • Make people aware of the advantages of using contraceptive methods that will empower individuals and couples to decide the number of children they want and when they wish to have them.
  • Provide high quality contraceptives at affordable prices for every strata of the population.
  • Improve the quality of life and reduce infant and maternal mortality through better Family Planning products and services.
  • Increase awareness of safer sexual practices to reduce sexually transmitted infections (STI’S) including HIV/AIDS.
  • Ensure program continuity through revenues generated from sales which are invested back into the program.

What does NESMARK do?

  • It offers Albanian women and men a reliable way to improve their social, physical and emotional well-being through better Family Planning services.
  • It has set up a permanent team of dedicated, well trained professionals able to promote not only family planning and reproductive health bit also any programs which deal with behavior change.
  • Increase political and civil society’s capabilities to deal with demographic and public health phenomena.

NESMARK is made up of three components:

  • The Social Marketing Component provides direct distribution of high quality contraceptive products at affordable prices through pharmacies and non-traditional outlets.
  • The Training Component provides intensive training about Reproductive Health Issues to Primary Health Care providers as well as to youth and to high risk groups.
  • The Information, Education and Communication (IEC) Component develops mass media campaigns to inform target groups about NESMARK products, develop their attitudes and increase their use of modern contraceptives; it also implements market research.

What is Social Marketing?

Social Marketing is a development approach that applies modern commercial marketing techniques for humanitarian aims. The aim is to find solutions to social issues through behavior change. Social Marketing improves the quality of life by offering family planning users a real choice through better access to information, products and services at affordable prices.

NESMARK uses the principles of Social Marketing to:

  • Continuously provide Family planning products and services country wide.
  • Develop and distribute information, education and behavioral change communication materials.
  • Strengthen Family Planning health centers capacity for better service delivery.

Social Marketing

The application of modern sales techniques accompanied by country wide coverage with NESMARK products is the main goal of the Social Marketing Component. The inventory of NESMARK includes products such as: “FOR YOU” condom, “FOR YOU MORE” dotted condom, “SIGORAL” oral contraceptive pill, “SIGORAL N” oral contraceptive pill, “DEPO PROVERA” injection contraceptive, “POSTINOR” emergency contraceptive, Pregnancy Test and Intra Uterine Device. NESMARK products are distributed directly to retail outlets by dedicated NESMARK salesmen throughout Albania despite the location of the outlet – be it in a village or town, and despite the distance of that village or town from Tirana. Due to the efforts of this component it has been possible to cover not only all of the pharmacies nationwide, but also a considerable number of nontraditional outlets like motels, fuel stations and different kiosks that also offer the condoms sold by NESMARK. The Couple per Year protection (CYP) offered by NESMARK has increased too.

Training and Visit Initiative

The NESMARK TVI component is an intensive countrywide Reproductive Health training activity designed for Primary Health Care providers of Albania.