Practices that Will Maximize Investments in Family Planing Programs

Family planning experts from USAID, UNFPA, WHO, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and 14 nongovernmental and private organizations met on July 9-10, 2012, ahead of the landmark London Summit on Family Planning, to review evidence around high-impact practices in family planning (HIPs).

Meeting at UNFPA headquarters in New York, the participants discussed evidence on eight specific practices that, when scaled up and institutionalized, will maximize investments in family planning programs:

• Provide family planning counseling and services at the same time and location where women receive treatment for complications related to abortion. Many postabortion clients have a clear need and demand for family planning, and strong evidence demonstrates that providing family planning services at the same time and location where women receive postabortion treatment is feasible, acceptable, and effective.

• Train, equip, and support community health workers (CHWs) to provide a wide range of contraceptive methods. CHWs can be an important means of reducing inequities in access to services, especially in areas where individuals face physical and social barriers to health services.

• Provide a wide range of contraceptive methods through mobile outreach services—services provided by a mobile team of trained providers such as physicians and nurses, sometimes in a vehicle such as a van or bus that is equipped with clinic facilities. Mobile outreach provides services to women and men in the communities where they live and work, as do CHWs. While CHWs provide a limited range of contraceptive methods, such as oral contraceptives, condoms, and sometimes injectables, mobile outreach services have the added benefit of giving people direct access to long-acting and permanent methods (LAPMs).