Technical Areas

Divisions   |   Global Leadership Priorities   |   Other Technical Areas

Source: Linda Andrews, PLP

The Office of Population and Reproductive Health addresses family planning and reproductive health issues through a combination of activities.

The results of USAID-supported biomedical, operations, demographic, evaluation, applied, and social science research form the foundation for future services and programs worldwide. The Congress, the general public, and other international agencies and partners rely heavily on these data and analyses.

The Office’s global leadership, technical support to the field, and research and evaluation functions are closely linked. Needs are identified in the field, research is undertaken to determine how best to respond to those needs, and on-the-ground experience feeds back into program development and new initiatives. The Office also plays an important role in coordinating with other donors. This work is centered in four divisions.

Divisions

Commodity Security and Logistics
Provides a centralized system for contraceptive procurement, maintains a database on commodity assistance, and supports a program for contraceptive logistics management.

Policy, Evaluation and Communication
Collects and analyzes family planning and other reproductive health information; improves the policy environment for family planning and reproductive health services; and strengthens methodologies for evaluation of family planning and reproductive health programs. Increases the awareness, acceptability, and use of family planning methods and expands and strengthens the managerial and technical skills of family planning and health personnel.

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Research, Technology and Utilization
Supports biomedical research to increase understanding of contraceptive methods and to develop new fertility regulation technologies and conducts operations research to improve the delivery of family planning and reproductive health services.

Service Delivery Improvement
Increases availability and quality of family planning and related reproductive health services through strengthening government programs, local private voluntary organizations, for-profit organizations, and commercial channels.

Global Leadership Priority (GLP) Technical Areas

GLPs represent cutting edge issues that affect family planning and reproductive health programming and require dedicated attention.  Each GLP has a coordinator or champion and a working group who establish a strategic direction, identify priority areas of investment, and coordinate activities that are undertaken across a number of existing centrally-managed agreements.

• Family Planning and HIV Prevention Integration
• Repositioning Family Planning
• Contraceptive Security
• Female Genital Cutting
• Gender Issues
• Maximizing Access and Quality (MAQ) Initiative
• Population and Environment
• Postabortion Care
• Poverty and Health Equity
• Refugee Reproductive Health
• Youth

Other Technical Areas

The Office of Population and Reproductive Health provides support to missions and addresses a wide range of field needs, enabling missions to benefit from USAID's worldwide experience and knowledge. Technical areas include:

• Behavior Change
• Birth Spacing
• Capacity Building
• Community-Based Distribution Programs
• Consumer Education
• Contraceptive Management
• Contraceptive Social Marketing
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Financing Programs
• Health Policy and Sector Reform
• Information, Education, and Communication
• Management and Leadership Development
• Minority Serving Institutions
• Policy Programs
• Private Sector Services
• Research
• Training Service Providers

For more information on family planning, please contact USAID at kocheltree@usaid.gov.