The INFO Project Blog

An article in Ghana’s Public Agenda drew our attention today to a report from Population Reference Bureau (PRB) showing that demand for family planning services is growing around the world.

According to Toshiko Kaneda, co-author of the new data sheet Family Planning Worldwide, the increase is due to two key trends: the huge numbers of young people entering childbearing age in the developing world, and the increasing adoption of contraceptive use. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, generous funding slotted towards the prevention and treatment of HIV have stolen some of the thunder once belonging to global family planning programs. The budget and quantity of often vertically-organized programs (for example, a program offering HIV voluntary counseling and testing with no information on family planning), have left many reproductive health advocates scrambling to demonstrate to decision makers how essential, not to mention cost effective, family planning is.

In the words of Dr. Robert Blum, who teaches in the Population, Family and Reproductive Health department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

HIV has sucked not only all of the air out of the conversation, but also all the money…

Luckily, reproductive health advocates are mobilizing. The Global Exchange Network for Reproductive Health (GEN) is organizing a virtual discussion forum, “Using Leadership to Reposition Reproductive Health on the Public Health Agenda.” Funded by USAID, the forum will take place June 9-13 on the GEN Web site, in three languages (English, Spanish and French). Read the rest of this entry »

The Population Reports team has been busy, busy, between researching new findings on contraceptive methods, elements of successful family planning programs, and providing an updated guide to the highly effective but underutilized method of vasectomy.

Last covered by the Population Reports series in 1992, vasectomy research has now clarified many questions of eligibility criteria, optimal technique, post surgical follow-up and risk of long-term health concerns.

The topic came to light today in a blog post on the Elements of Family Planning Success Web site. Yogeeta Manglani, an INFO intern, posted on her blog about new male contraceptive options, which include hormonal therapy, testicular warming, transdermal gels and, fascinatingly, a vitamin A blocker. According to Yogeeta,

The most talked about methods are RISUG, an injectable compound that seems to prevent a man from fathering a child for up to 10 years and IVDs, which are sutured to the vas deferens.

Yogeeta, who cited a U.S. News & World Report article from April, writes that steady funding for research on male contraception is less than assured. This major roadblock means, in the words of Elaine Lissner, director of the San Francisco-based Male Contraception Information Project, no real progress can be made in the near future.

The problem, she added, is that research has been scattergun. ‘If we [continue to] do a study here, a study there, as we have for the last 20 years, it could take forever.’

In the mean time, don’t miss the Population Reports issue on vasectomy. Watch this site.

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Winifrede Mwebesa at the Save the Children office in DC. In her interview for the FP Success Web site, Dr. Mwebesa emphasizes the importance of working with key stakeholders in the community. It is critical, she notes, to understand the context in which a family planning program is operating, and then to tailor the key messages to that context. Working with gatekeepers and stakeholders enables FP programs to overcome obstacles to family planning success and reach their end goal. Dr. Mwebesa states: “Ultimately, what we want to do is for the woman to use something that is going to enable her to space her pregnancies. But she cannot make that decision on her own. You need to be working with men, mothers in law, and definitely with community and religious leaders to try and get some of those messages down there. ” 

During this interview, Dr. Mwebesa describes the process of involving community stakeholders to dispel myths and garner support for FP programs. She also provides specific examples of working with imams in Mali and Guinea.

Two months ago I landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to carry out the Africa-based segment of the Elements of Family Planning Success Project. Activities are now in full swing! There is a growing interest in knowledge management in this country and region, so this project is very timely. In addition, social networking sites, such as African Path Village are gaining in popularity.

I’ve demonstrated the FP Success Web site to several Ethiopian colleagues, including the staff of the Ethiopian AIDS Resource Center and members of the Implementing Best Practices (IBP) Initiative’s Ethiopia Country Team.

I’m excited to be involved with both IBP activities in Ethiopia and the FP Success Project and hope to channel the two efforts to work together. In April I accompanied Suzanne Reier and Dr. Abonesh Hailemariam, two colleagues working on IBP from the WHO, to the northern region of Tigray. There we met with representatives from the IBP partner organizations USAID/DELIVER, Pathfinder, the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), and the Regional Health Bureau. This team had previously identified that logistics and contraceptive supply was an issue in this region, and are now working together to address this problem. While touring some of the local clinics we had the opportunity to meet with some of the region’s Health Extension Workers who talked about their experiences with community outreach. This trip provided a great snapshot of the family planning situation in rural Ethiopia and what local organizations are doing to work towards family planning success.

I have also started working on the Population Reports issue on this topic. This report will be unique in that it will combines opinions, lessons learned, best practices from FP programmers around the world with the latest evidence-based research. The report, along with an e-learning course, will be available in September, so stay tuned!

What else has INFO been up to in Africa? Two weeks ago I attended the conference “Investing in Young People’s Health and Development: Research that Improves Policies and Programs” in Abuja, Nigeria. At the conference I presented “Using Knowledge Management to Improve Reproductive Health Programs for Young People,” which focused on how the INFO Project uses the Knowledge Management principles to develop information products and services to “get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time.”

While I was in Nigeria I had the opportunity to interview three family planning professionals for the FP Success Web site. Bright Ekweremadu, Managing Director of Nigeria’s Society for Family Health spoke about effective communication and outreach strategies. I also conducted two interviews with Pathfinder staff: Mike Egboh, the Pathfinder Nigeria Country Director, spoke about leadership and Dr. Habib Sadauki, Senior FP/RH Advisor, weighed in on integrated programs.

We have several interviews planned for Ethiopia, including Dr. Abonesh Hailemariam of WHO and Dr. Gelila Kidane, Country Director for EngenderHealth.

Look for these interviews soon on www.fpsuccess.org!