• Current Issue
• Archive
• Subscribe

• Adding Family Planning to PMTCT Sites Increases PMTCT Benefits [PDF, 107KB]
  This brief describes the benefits of adding family planning services to prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) sites, including increases in child infections averted, child deaths averted, and unintended pregnancies averted.
  
  
• Family Planning in the Era of HIV/AIDS: More Important Than Ever [PDF, 64KB]
  This brief highlights the importance of integrating family planning services and HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment as they are complimentary health interventions.
  
  
• Human Resources for Health [PDF, 58KB]
  Three major human resources for health challenges are the HIV/AIDS crisis, labor migration, and chronic underinvestment in human resources. This brief outlines these challenges as well as describes possible solutions.
  
  
• Increasing the Role of the Private Health Sector [PDF, 76KB]
  The private health sector is an untapped resource in sub-Saharan Africa that could be mobilized to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. This brief describes the importance of bringing the private health sector into the struggle to provide quality health services.
  
  
• Long-Acting and Permanent Methods of Contraception: Meeting Clients' Needs [PDF, 102KB]
  This brief details how the availability and use of long-acting and permanent methods of contraception is important to achieving national development goals.
  
  
• No Product, No Program: Financing, Procurement, and Distribution of Reproductive Health Supplies [PDF, 57KB]
  This brief describes the necessary components required to improve contraceptive security including systems strengthening, supply chain vigilance, private sector involvement, supportive national policies, and global coordination and advocacy.
  
  
• Repositioning Family Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa [PDF, 136KB]
  Crucial to the success of the repositioning family planning initiative are increased political commitment for family planning, strengthened participation and coordination, and a more effective allocation of resources toward technically sounds programs. This brief provides an overview of this initiative.
  
  
• USAID's Family Planning Services [PDF, 71KB]
  USAID has long been a leader in the effort to improve health by providing couples with voluntary family planning services. This brief describes USAID's family planning vision, priorities, and programs.

• Ghana: Give them the Power [PDF, 819KB]
  
  
• Malawi: Choice, Not Chance [PDF, 767KB]
  
  
• Uganda: Community-Based Distribution of Depo-Provera: Evidence of Success in the African Context [PDF, 125KB
  Summary of a study demonstrating the safety, feasibility, and acceptability of community-based distribution (CBD) of Depo-Provera in a rural Ugandan district. Study results reinforce the wealth of successful experiences from other regions and affirm that well-trained community health workers can safely provide injectable contraception in the African context.
  
  
• The Repositioning Family Planning Case Studies Synthesis Report [PDF, 514KB]
  
  
• Senegal: Promising Beginnings, Uneven Progress [PDF, 280KB]
  
  
• Tanzania: A Successful Program Loses Momentum [PDF, 672KB]
  
  
• Zambia: Ready for Change [PDF, 1.1MB]

• Family Planning Success Stories in Sub-Saharan Africa [PDF, 186KB]
  Evidence from Malawi, Zambia, and Ghana demonstrate that rapid uptake and sustained use of modern family planning methods can occur in even the most poor, resource-strapped, and largely rural countries.
• Access More Family Planning Success Stories

• Repositioning Family Planning in West Africa - 02/15/05 to 02/18/05 in Accra, Ghana
  Multisectoral country teams and their partners will work together to explore the nature and dimensions of unmet family planning needs.

Perspectives on Unmet Need for Family Planning in West Africa
The countries of West Africa have some of the highest levels of unmet need for family planning in the world. This series of briefing papers is designed to contribute to the effort of improving family planning policies and programs by offering various perspectives on the nature and dimensions of unmet need based on the findings of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in 11 West African countries.

• Benin [PDF, 180KB]
• Burkina Faso [PDF, 180KB]
• Cameroon [PDF, 180KB]
• Côte d’Ivoire [PDF, 181KB]
• Guinea [PDF, 181KB]
• Mali [PDF, 181KB]
• Niger [PDF, 179KB]
• Senegal [PDF, 182KB]
• Togo [PDF, 180KB
  

• Networking for Policy Change: An Advocacy Training Manual
  This training manual was prepared to help representatives of nongovernmental organizations and other formal groups of civil society form and maintain advocacy networks and develop effective family planning/reproductive health advocacy skills.
  • Maternal Health Supplement [PDF, 442KB]
    
    
• Maternal and Neonatal Program Effort Index (MNPI)
  The POLICY Project’s Maternal and Neonatal Program Effort Index (MNPI) series provides country-specific data on maternal and neonatal health programs in more than 30 developing countries.
  
  
• Planting the Seeds for Change: Advocacy Success in Russia [PDF, 225KB]
  A look at the Policy Project’s advocacy activities throughout Russia, including a Training-of-Trainers (TOT) workshop on network building and advocacy, as well as work with the Russian Reproductive Health Advocacy Network.
  
  
• Conakry Forum on Promotion of Family Planning Through Advocacy and Legislative Reform [PDF, 73KB]
  Twenty parliamentarians from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal and 15 of their close allies in the public and nongovernmental sector convened in Conakry, Guinea, June 2 – 6, 2003, and adopted legislative agendas and strategies to improve family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) programs in their respective countries.
  
  
• Nigeria - Advocacy and Strategic Planning for Youth Reproductive Health in Edo State [PDF, 174KB]
  This four-page policy brief describes advocacy efforts that led to formulation of a state-level strategic plan for youth reproductive health issues in Edo State, Nigeria.
  
  
• Using the SPARHCS Approach to Reposition Family Planning in Madagascar: A Success Story [PDF, 374KB]
  This assessment documents the SPARHCS process, and its results, challenges, and recommendations for raising awareness of the family planning program in Madagascar.
  
  
• Igniting Change! Accelerating Collective Action for Reproductive Health and Motherhood
  Documenting the experiences of two global USAID-funded initiatives and how social mobilization has effectively been applied to the field of reproductive health and safe motherhood, this report describes how mulitsectoral coalitions, or alliances, use a social mobilization approach to foster local capacity and ownership, shared commitment, and mutual accountability for health.
  
  
• Communication Action Groups: Promoting Broader Discussion of Reproductive Health - Nepal
  This study, conducted in 2002 by the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Communication Action Group (CAG) programs in Nepal and investigates women’s ability to communicate about reproductive health issues with each other and with their spouses.
  
  
• ENABLE’s Contributions to the Reproductive Health Field
  This project report describes the Enabling Change for Women’s Reproductive Health (ENABLE) Project, which was implemented during 1998-2003 in Ghana, India, Nepal, Nigeria and Senegal, with the aim to strengthen women’s capabilities for informed and autonomous decisionmaking to prevent unintended pregnancy and improve reproductive health.
  
  
• Social Mobilization for Reproductive Health
  This manual, which promotes social mobilization as a means for communities to publicly declare their right to control their reproductive health and to create widespread support for those rights, was designed to strengthen the efforts of development leaders and managers to increase local participation and, simultaneously, women's empowerment.
  
  
• Advocacy: Building Skills for NGO Leaders
  This manual, the ninth volume in the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) Training Manual Series, uses a participatory training approach to introduce the basic principles of advocacy in the format of a three-day workshop design. Manual also available in French and Spanish.
  
  
• Gender, Reproductive Health, and Advocacy
  This manual, part of the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) Training Manual Series, prepares nongovernmental organizations to implement reproductive health programs and strategies, identify how their organizations' programs fit within the reproductive health framework, and develop strategies and action plans for expanding and integrating organizational activities in the areas of gender, reproductive health, and/or advocacy. Manual also available in Spanish.
  
  
• Strengthening Family Planning Policies and Programs in Developing Countries: An Advocacy Toolkit [PDF, 1.2MB]
  This manual provides step-by-step advice to community and national staff to promote family planning agendas.
  
  
• Repositioning Family Planning in West Africa Conference
  This Web site contains conference materials, resources, and country follow-up plans from the Repositioning Family Planning in West Africa Conference that was held February 15 – 18, 2005.
  • Country Follow-Up Plans
  • Achieving the Millennium Development Goals [PowerPoint, 1.3MB]
    
    
• What is Repositioning Family Planning? [PDF, 46KB]
  A summary paper from 2004 that includes accomplishments to date, the USAID plan of action for fiscal year 2004, and highlights from the field.

• Making Family Planning Part of the PRSP Process: A Guide for Incorporating Family Planning Programs into Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper [PDF, 508KB]
  This guide is designed to help family planning champions—including civil society and NGOs, international and donor organizations, and interested government officials—and other stakeholders promote the inclusion of family planning issues and programs into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).
  
  
  
• SPARHCS: Strategic Pathway to Reproductive Health Commodity Security -
  A Tool for Assessment, Planning, and Implementation
  This tool is meant to help countries develop and implement strategies to secure essential supplies for family planning and reproductive health programs. SPARHCS is meant to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to initiate at the country level concerted efforts toward the goal of reproductive health commodity security. The publication is available in English, Spanish and French.
  
  
• Reproductive Health Commodity Security Strategy for the West Africa Subregion [PDF, 791KB]
  The vision of this strategy is to achieve reproductive health commodity security (RHCS) in West Africa, which will exist when every West African can reliably choose, obtain, and use quality, affordable, essential reproductive health supplies when he or she needs them. This document demonstrates that the increased use of reproductive health products can reduce maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity, which supports the West African Health Organization’s (WAHO) maternal health objectives.
  • Also available in French
    
    
• Contraceptive Security Index User’s Guide [PDF, 895KB]
  This is the user’s guide for the Contraceptive Security Index 2006: A Tool for Priority Setting and Planning. This guide was developed to help program managers, logisticians, and others get the most out of the index and effectively present its findings to decision makers.
  • Also available in French [PDF, 1MB] and Spanish [PDF, 1MB]
    


• Policy Issues in Planning and Finance
  This series is intended to focus attention on the importance of developing a favorable policy environment that encourages appropriate and adequate FP/RH and HIV/AIDS program financing.
  • Targeting : A Key Element of National Contraceptive Security Planning [PDF, 237KB]
  • Strengthening Contraceptive Security in Decentralized Settings [PDF, 270KB]
  • Creating Conditions for Greater Private Sector Participation in FP/RH: Benefits for Contraceptive Security [PDF, 2MB]
    
  
  
• Contraceptive Security Lessons
  Many countries face the challenge of meeting people's needs for contraceptives and condoms on a sustainable basis. Contraceptive Security: Ready Lessons suggests some practical steps USAID Missions and their partners can take to promote and support country-led programs for contraceptive security.
  • Overview [PDF, 5.9MB]
  • Lesson One: Raising Awareness and Commitment [PDF, 4.3MB]
  • Lesson Two: Doing a Joint Assessment [PDF, 2.8MB]
  • Lesson Three: Taking a Whole Market Approach [PDF, 2.8MB]
  • Lesson Four: Advocating for Sustained Commitment [PDF, 3.1MB]
  • Lesson Five: Using Data for Decision Making [PDF, 3.1MB]
    
  
  
• Moving in the Right Direction: Results of a Global Survey of Activities and Processes to Meet Contraceptive Commodity Needs [PDF, 244KB]
  This report focuses primarily on the results of a global survey of local and international nongovernmental organizations and public officials with the goal of gathering information on how countries have addressed reproductive health and family planning, commodities in particular, where significant advocacy efforts have occurred.
  
  
• Contraceptive Self-Reliance Through Financial Sustainability: A Market Segmentation Approach [PDF, 310KB]
  The overall objective of this study is to develop a financial sustainability strategy for contraceptive self-reliance (CSR) in the Philippines using a market segmentation approach.
  
  
• Contraceptive Security: Assessing Strengths and Weaknesses
  These regional reports contain the results of an assessment, launched by USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, to determine how contraceptive security in the LAC region could be more effectively addressed and strengthened in light of a phase-out of contraceptive donations.
  • Bolivia [PDF, 311KB]
  • Honduras [PDF, 316KB]
  • Nicaragua [PDF, 345KB]
  • Paraguay [PDF, 296KB]
  • Peru [PDF, 318KB]
    
    
• Family Planning Market Segmentation in Jordan: An Analysis of the Family Planning Market in Jordan to Develop an Effective and Evidence-Based Strategic Plan for Attaining Contraceptive Security [PDF, 271KB]
  This paper presents a detailed market segmentation analysis of the family planning sector in Jordan, including an overview of the provider market and analysis of the consumer market in terms of consumer characteristics, needs, method use, and sources of contraceptives.
  
  
• Contraceptive Use Helps Reduce the Incidence of Abortion
  Access to voluntary family planning services, including contraception, is essential in helping to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and, consequently, the incidence of abortion.
• Population Action International (PAI) Publications Library
  
  
• Related Web Sites
  • USAID Contraceptive Security
  • Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition
  • UNFPA Supplies
  • USAID | DELIVER Project
  • USAID | DELIVER Project Regional Advocacy
    Including East Africa Commodity Security Initiative and West Commodity Security Initiative
  • International Association for Public Health Logisticians
  
  

Improving Access to Family Planning: Community-based Distribution of DMPA
Drawing on research and programs from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this kit, created by Family Health International (FHI), presents seven briefs with evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of CBD provision of DMPA. The kit also includes overviews of resources and steps for initiating provision within existing reproductive health programs, as well as a checklist for screening clients based on the World Health Organization's Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use.

• Brief 1: Expanding Access to Injectable Contraception
  
  
• Brief 2: Safety of Community-based Distribution of DMPA
  
  
• Brief 3: Effectiveness of Community-based Distribution of DMPA
  
  
• Brief 4: Integrating Community-based Distribution of DMPA into Existing Health Systems
  
  
• Brief 5: Community-based Distribution of DMPA: The Nakasongola Project, Uganda
  
  
• Brief 6: Community-based Distribution of DMPA: The APROFAM Project, Guatemala
  
  
• Brief 7: Community-based Distribution of DMPA: The Matlab Project, Bangladesh
  
  
• Steps to Begin Providing DMPA through Community-based Services
  
  
• Selected CBD of DMPA Resources

• Poverty, Gender, and Youth - Fertility Transition in Developing Countries: Progress or Stagnation? [PDF, 442KB]
  This study published by the Population Council examines the pace of fertility change in developing countries that have multiple DHS surveys to determine whether ongoing transitions are decelerating or stalling.
  


• Contraceptive Trends in Developing Countries
  This study published by the MEASURE DHS project examines trends and differentials in key family planning indicators in 35 developing countries. The data are for countries with a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted between 2000 and 2005. The study investigates how knowledge of contraception and use of contraception have changed; whether public-private, urban-rural, and other differentials in contraceptive use have narrowed; and whether women are making informed decisions about the use of contraception.
  


• Voices from the Village: Improving Lives through CARE’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Programs [PDF, 768KB]
  This article reviews how CARE and USAID introduced a family planning program to remote, war-torn Maniema province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and describes the results achieved and lessons learned to date on how to meet the needs for reproductive health services in post-conflict environments.
  


• Enabling Women for Reproductive Health: The Reward Project - Endline Evaluation [PDF, 131KB]
  A summary of an end-of-project evaluation, conducted by the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), to determine the outcomes of the Reaching and Enabling Women Act on Reproductive Health Decisions (REWARD) Project and assessing its impact towards the goal of strengthening women’s capabilities for informed decisionmaking to prevent unintended pregnancy and improve reproductive health.
  
  
• Expanding Contraceptive Choice: Integrating Injectables into NGO Family Planning Services [PDF, 924KB]
  This special booklet, published by the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) under the ENABLE project, was created to enable organizations to expand their list of contraceptive methods and introduce injectables as an additional contraceptive option.
  
  
• Plateaus During the Rise of Contraceptive Prevalence [PDF, 94KB]
  Issues exist concerning the actual frequency of plateaus in contraceptive increase, why they occur, why most are so brief, and what actions should be taken when they occur. This analysis report uses a large set of national surveys to explore these questions and to offer suggestions.
  
  
• Linkages between Women’s Participation in Democratic Activities and Reproductive Health Behaviors: A Case Study of Plateau State, Nigeria [PDF, 401KB]
  This case study evaluates the democracy and governance and reproductive health activities, implemented by the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) with the Church of Christ in Nigeria, in an effort to expand access to reproductive health services, empower women, and increase community participation in building coalitions for reproductive health and rights.
  
  
• Lessons Learned From Phase-out of Donor Support in a National Family Planning Program: The Case of Mexico [PDF, 546KB]
  Throughout the world, a number of countries are facing withdrawal of funding and technical assistance for their family planning programs — a trend, known throughout the family planning community as “phaseout” or “graduation.” This case study of Mexico provides an in-depth look at a national family planning program before, during, and after phaseout and documents the lessons learned from that process.
  
  
• Issues and Strategies for Sustainability of Family Planning Service in Egypt: A Background Analysis Paper [PDF, 379KB]
  This paper, designed to serve as a key background document for the Sustainability Strategy Conference, May 3 – 4, 2001, summarizes the findings of 12 individual situation analysis papers developed under four different subject areas: financial sustainability, institutional capacity, enabling environment, and sustainability of demand.
  
  
• Family Planning and Safe Motherhood: Saving Lives and Meeting Development Goals in Cambodia [PDF, 1.5MB]
  This booklet reviews Cambodia's current reproductive health situation and focuses on the challenges ahead for family planning and safe motherhood programs.
  
  
• Family Planning - An African Village's Position
  An account of how a small village in Ghana is using family planning to improve the health of their children and mothers while safely and effectively increasing their population size.
  
  
• Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (Second Edition): Chapter 57 - Contraception
  Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (Second Edition) highlights achievable priorities; measures progress toward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effective interventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated efforts to optimize health.
  

• Strategic Plan for Adolescent Reproductive Health in Edo State of Nigeria (2004 - 2009) [PDF, 1MB]
  A strategic plan to improve the sexual and reproductive health status of young adults and adolescents by building on the existing strengths, identifying available opportunities and resources for use to bridge existing gaps, and challenges for youth programming in the Edo State.
  
  
• A GIFT for RH Project, Nepal: Endline Evaluation [PDF, 130KB]
  The mission of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for their Reproductive Heath (A Gift for RH) Project was to help rural women and girls acquire knowledge and skills to make informed decisions and to take appropriate actions to address their educational, social, and reproductive health needs. This endline evaluation study assesses the achievements of the project.
  
  
• Franchising the Better Life Options Program through the BLOOM Adolescent Network [PDF, 522KB]
  This report details the franchising and scaling up of the Better Life Options Program, a Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) adolescent program, in India, that seeks to empower girls and boys aged 10 – 19 to make decisions in their own self-interest and to envision and achieve more equitable relationships.
  
  
• The Better Life Options Program for Adolescent Boys in India [PDF, 7MB]
  Better Life Options Program promotes opportunities for girls and young women to make better life choices concerning their health, economic status, civic participation, education, employment, decisionmaking abilities, and family planning. This booklet describes how a similar program was developed, in India, for adolescent boys to effectively challenge gender inequalities.
  
  
• Improving Girls' Lives in Egypt: A Decade of Progress [PDF, 117KB]
  An overview of the New Horizons project, which through ten years of project activity, supported Egyptian nongovernmental organizations and youth centers in developing and implementing innovative life skills and reproductive health informal education courses for youth.
  
  
• Reproductive Health for Youth in Mali Project (RHYM): End of Project Report [PDF, 174KB]
  An end of project report describing the achievements of the Reproductive Health for Youth in Mali (RHYM) Project, a USAID-funded project which trained volunteer peer educators in reproductive health and information, education and communication skills specific to youth, as well as maternal and child health survival, as a strategy to promote behavior change among youth in Mali.
  

• Country Analysis of Family Planning and HIV/AIDS: Kenya [PDF, 111KB]
  This study was designed to document the extent to which Kenya has managed both its family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) and HIV/AIDS programs, in the context of the high HIV prevalence the country is experiencing.
  
  
• Country Analysis of Family Planning and HIV/AIDS: Zambia [PDF, 92KB]
  This report describes recent trends in family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) and HIV/AIDS service delivery in Zambia.
  
  
• Country Analysis of Family Planning and HIV/AIDS: Ethiopia [MS Word, 263KB]
  This study is an investigation into the status and trends of family planning (FP) and reproductive health (RH) programs within the context of Ethiopia’s heightening HIV/AIDS epidemic.
  
  
• Provision and Use of Family Planning in the Context of HIV/AIDS in Kenya: Perspectives of Providers, Family Planning and Antenatal Care Clients, and HIV-Positive Women [PDF, 660KB]
  This study explores how family planning is being implemented in Kenya in the context of high HIV prevalence. A similar study was conducted in Zambia.
  
  
• Provision and Use of Family Planning in the Context of HIV/AIDS in Zambia: Perspectives of Providers, Family Planning and Antenatal Care Clients, and HIV-Positive Women [PDF, 386KB]
  This study documents the status and trends in Zambia’s family planning (FP) program in the context of high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. A similar study was conducted in Kenya.
  
  
• More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa
  This Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force Report argues that Africa is becoming more central to the United States and to the rest of the world in ways that transcend humanitarian interests. Africa now plays an increasingly significant role in supplying energy, preventing the spread of terrorism, and halting the devastation of HIV/AIDS.
  

• Making Family Planning Part of the PRSP Process: A Guide for Incorporating Family Planning Programs into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers [PDF, 508KB]
  This guide is designed to help family planning champions - including civil society and NGOs, international and donor organizations, and interested government officials - and other stakeholders promote the inclusion of family planning issues and programs into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).
  
  
• Addressing Population in Poverty Reduction Strategies [PDF, 221KB]
  This policy brief provides background information about PRSPs and their functions, explains the PRSP development process, and advances the argument for including family planning into poverty reduction strategies. The brief outlines the main reasons for countries to invest in family planning programs to accelerate poverty reduction.
  

• Reproductive Health Awareness: A Wellness, Self-Care Approach
  Reproductive Health Awareness is a holistic approach to reproductive health incorporating many important aspects such as body awareness, self-care, gender, sexuality, and interpersonal communication. The RHA training manual consists of 14 modules, which cover these topics in depth and explain how these issues affect people throughout the lifecycle.