By Kaja Jurczynska, Demographer at Palladium: Make It Possible

Despite improvements in family planning programs, millions of women are still not receiving quality information and services. Among these women are adolescents, the least educated, ethnic and religious minorities, and others whose disadvantages are unfair and unjust. Better directing information and services for those who need them most across the essential elements of care—the availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of information and services—could not only bolster uptake, but also address longstanding inequities and improve allocative efficiency.

To support the next phase of family planning commitments and programming, the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project developed an Approach for Diagnosing Inequity in Family Planning Programs. This approach identifies inequities for a range of disadvantaged subgroups; for various programmatic components of family planning; and at national and subnational levels. Replicable across countries through HP+’s open source code, the approach enables users to easily transform Demographic and Health Survey data to:

• Better design and target activities at national and subnational levels across actors (like within Costed Implementation Plans (CIPs) and annual family planning plans)
• Support the efficient allocation and channeling of scare health and family planning resources across actors and geographies

HP+ applied the approach in Uganda, finding pervasive family planning inequities that affect a broad range of underserved groups, extend beyond traditional measures of uptake, and penetrate all regions.

Please join us on Tuesday, August 18^th at 10:00 am EDT / 4:00 pm CEST for a webinar on this approach jointly presented by the Market Development Approaches and Advocacy & Accountability working groups of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. This webinar will showcase:

• The approach for diagnosing inequities in family planning programming, including its basic methodology and how it can be replicated;
• Results from its application to Uganda; and
• How it can be leveraged by and useful for governments, the private sector, donors, and advocates.