Burkina Faso

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference

ihadmin2 — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 15:10:48 +0000

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference ihadmin2 April 17, 2023

May 08, 2023 - May 11, 2023

The International Maternal Newborn Health Conference marks a pivotal moment as we get closer to 2030, the end date of globally agreed upon goals for maternal and newborn health and prevention of stillbirths. IMNHC will convene the maternal newborn health community to drive urgent action for the health of mothers and newborns by collaborating and fostering strong connections, exchanging the most effective tools, sharing best practices and evidence, and investing in proven interventions.

Aligning TOGETHER. Accelerating TOGETHER. Saving lives TOGETHER.

AlignMNH Secretariat

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference | #IMNCH2023

Our Participation

Panel Discussions

New research and program learning from Rwanda

Date(s):	May 09, 2023 11:00am - 12:15pm SAST (05:00am - 06:15am EDT)
More Information:	Two IntraHealth experts will participate in this panel discussion. Kathryn Mimno will deliver a presentation, "Factors associated with labor companionship in Rwanda." Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali will deliver two presentations, "Factors influencing delivery of the recommended service package for first antenatal care visit in Rwanda—a mixed method study" and "Reducing missed opportunities for first ANC visits through linkage of general OPD to ANC services in rural Rwanda."
Location:	Daisy Room
Presenter(s):	Kathryn Mimno and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Every woman everywhere has a right to quality care: Addressing quality gaps in humanitarian settings

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 01:55pm - 02:55pm SAST (07:55am - 08:55am EDT)
More Information:	Onikepe Owolabi will be a panelist during this session and will deliver a presentation, "Improving referral outcomes in eastern Uganda through a social media digital platform."
Location:	Room 1.41-1.42
Presenter(s):	Onikepe Owolabi

Comment améliorer l’accès et l’adhésion aux soins pour une expérience positive de la grossesse (en français)

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 01:55pm - 02:55pm SAST (07:55am - 08:55am EDT)
More Information:	Marguerite Ndour will be a panelist during this session and will deliver a presentation, "Intégrer les soins maternels, néonatals, infantiles, nutrition et planification familiale en Afrique francophone occidentale augmente la résilience à COVID-19 et la couverture universelle en saisissant les opportunités d'offre de services."
Location:	Auditorium 2
Presenter(s):	Marguerite Ndour

Expanding maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) as a holistic quality improvement (QI) approach to accelerate saving maternal and newborn lives

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 03:15pm - 04:00pm SAST (09:15am - 10:00am EDT)
More Information:	Kathryn Mimno will be a moderator and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali will be a panelist during this MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics thematic session.
Location:	Daisy Room
Presenter(s):	Kathryn Mimno and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Poster Presentation

To what extent are maternal and child health, family planning, and nutrition services integrated in the national-level policies in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger?

Date(s):	May 10, 2023 01:05pm - 02:05pm SAST (07:05am - 08:05am EDT)
Presenter(s):	Isabelle Bicaba

Participants

Robert Bambara

Monitoring, evaluation, and learning officer, INSPiRE

Isabelle Bicaba

Family planning/maternal and newborn health specialist, INSPiRE

Kathryn Mimno

Senior technical advisor

Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Deputy chief of party/Technical director, Ingobyi Activity, Rwanda

Marguerite Ndour

Project director, INSPiRE

Onikepe Owolabi

Senior global technical director for family planning and maternal, newborn, and child health

Fatoumata Tounkara

Monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning officer, Mali

Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Nigeria Rwanda Uganda Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Digital Health

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Cape Town, South Africa

How Do We Measure the Success of Integrated Health Services?

kseaton — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 15:06:08 +0000

How Do We Measure the Success of Integrated Health Services? kseaton December 10, 2021

December 10, 2021

Here's how our INSPiRE team in West Africa developed new indicators to monitor their progress toward more people-centered and efficient care.

Countries in West Africa have some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. Women in this region face a 1 in 34 lifetime risk of maternal death and 34 of every 1,000 infants do not survive their first 28 days. An estimated 24% of women have an unmet need for family planning and only 1 in 5 women are accessing modern contraception.

Achieving universal health coverage—wherein all people have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship—would turn these numbers around. One way to get there, the World Health Organization says, is through client-centered services integration. This is a way of providing a package of health services during a single visit—such as family planning and nutrition services and maternal care and newborn/infant care. And while it’s more efficient for the client and for the facility, it also means families who have to travel great distances to a health facility are more likely to get all the care they need.

This is a great way to advance universal health coverage in countries where access to care remains a big challenge.

It was in response to these challenges that IntraHealth introduced the INSPiRE initiative. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, INSPiRE helps national governments in West Africa’s nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries integrate services for family planning, nutrition, and maternal, neonatal, and child health for women and their newborns. This way,

a mother who travels to the clinic for postnatal care with her newborn for a vaccination visit, for example, will also receive counseling about family planning and nutrition information, all in the same visit.

“We have adopted the service integration approach which has enabled us to meet the needs of our clients, especially in terms of family planning,” says Nebenhide Gamba Ouedraogo, a midwife at the Urbain Health Center in Burkina Faso. “It has improved the quality of care and allows us to further reduce missed opportunities which, in turn, improves our indicators.”

Delivering services as an integrated package avoids missed opportunities to provide critical, lifesaving services for mothers and newborns. Through four points of entry—antenatal care, delivery, postnatal care, and newborn care—mothers can receive services they might not have otherwise received.

“I really appreciated the fact that I came to weigh my child and the health worker took the opportunity to talk to me about family planning," says Felicia Kiboro, a client visiting the Niche Health Center in Burkina Faso for a well baby visit. "The health worker welcomes us. He takes good care of our children. He weighs them and gives us a lot of advice, especially on family planning. He also talks about COVID-19."

The INSPIRE model was introduced in 11 facilities across three flagship countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Niger. After two years, the preliminary results in these facilities have been promising:

Approximately 9 out of 10 pregnant women seeking antenatal care services benefited from the integrated care package including counseling on family planning and nutrition.
There was a 96% increase in the number of women adopting a family planning method immediately after delivery.
The facilities offering the integrated services noted an increase of 273% in women adopting a family planning method within six months of delivery in 2019 compared to 2018.
Overall, there was an 84% increase in the use of health services at facilities offering integrated services.

“Service providers are seeing remarkable progress in their center’s performance indicators thanks to improved family planning uptake and increased use of prenatal and postnatal services,” says Marguerite Ndour, INSPiRE’s project director. “This is a great way to advance universal health coverage in primary health care services in countries where access to care remains a big challenge and resources are limited to expand health structures.”

Measuring service integration is critical to monitoring progress but also to reinforcing provider behavior change in a sustainable way. In partnership with the Ministry of Health, INSPiRE helped develop indicators that measure service integration. This approach is a regional first, promising sustainable success.

In each country, composite indicators were developed for family planning, nutrition, and maternal, newborn, and child health. They were included in the national health information systems and in the facility-level data collection tools. At each visit, health workers are reminded to report on the services they delivered to their clients using data collection tools, which are then monitored at the district and the national level.

These new indicators provide useful data for decision-making as the integrated service model is implemented and scaled up nationally, but they also provide women and their families with sustainable access to a range of high-quality services that they haven’t had before.

Resources

Developing Composite Indicators for Integrated Family Planning; Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health; and Nutrition Services

By Jen Snell

Former senior technical manager

INSPiRE Family Planning & Reproductive Health Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Universal Health Coverage Day Primary Health Care Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Niger

A health worker helps a mother and her baby at a health facility in Ouagadougou in 2017. Photo by Trevor Snapp for IntraHealth International.

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Cities in Francophone West Africa Add Over 350,000 Family Planning Users

kseaton — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 16:28:18 +0000

Cities in Francophone West Africa Add Over 350,000 Family Planning Users kseaton October 22, 2021 October 25, 2021

Over 350,000 new contraceptive users were added in 12 cities throughout francophone West Africa over the past five years. The Challenge Initiative’s (TCI) West Africa Hub, led by IntraHealth International, contributed to these results by working with local health systems, young people, religious and government leaders, and community health workers to increase access to family planning.

Since 2016, TCI’s francophone West Africa Hub has used a comprehensive approach to improve contraceptive use in five countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Niger. In partnership with municipalities and local health systems, the hub expands access to family planning by supporting the implementation of high impact interventions such as universal referral and post-partum family planning while also working to make those services more youth friendly. To create demand for services, the Hub supports local community-based organizations, youth ambassadors, and religious leaders to promote the benefits of family planning, dispel myths and rumors about contraception, and encourage male involvement in family planning decisions.

“We use high-impact interventions—including universal referral and free family planning days—to reach women and girls with critical family planning services,” says Hawa Talla, IntraHealth’s leader of TCI in West Africa. “And I’m so proud that we’ve been able to make sure they have access to family planning services and know their options when it comes to contraception.”

TCI cities in francophone West Africa have been able to increase access to family planning services with technical support from the Hub team. For example, the Hub developed a training manual and printed job aids for health workers to implement the universal referral intervention, an approach in which every woman of reproductive age who visits a health center is asked about her familiarity with and desire to use family planning. If she’s interested, she can receive services the same day. Over 2,300 health workers were trained on this approach in 910 health facilities. Because of this, over 1,670,000 women of reproductive age received family planning messages and the approach contributed to recruiting 46.8% of new family planning users.

“We’ve found that working with young people, religious leaders, community health workers, and others has helped change the way we talk about family planning in francophone West Africa,” says Talla. “It’s clear people now understand what family planning is and how to access it.”

TCI trained more than 600 young people on transformational leadership, advocacy, and how to participate in reproductive health and family planning programs. The young leaders developed and implemented advocacy plans and participated in family planning and reproductive health decision-making bodies in their regions. As a result of their advocacy, these young leaders also reduced the costs of family planning services, mobilized financial resources, and provided free coupons for family planning to increase access to sexual and reproductive health information, services, and products.

Government engagement is a key component of TCI’s approach and the West Africa Hub connected with mayors who invested in family planning programs and participated in health facility visits and meetings with health workers and youth leaders. Including mayors in local family planning efforts led to an increase in funding, initiatives, workshops, and community dialogues.

In Ziguinchor, Senegal, the health district, city hall, and municipal council members discussed the availability of grant funds, improving equipment and operations for health facilities, and building accommodations for health workers.
All 12 TCI-supported municipalities provided $330,000 to implement high-impact interventions in the cities.
In Koudougou, Burkina Faso, the mayor chaired a five-day workshop for TCI cities to establish joint family planning messages.
And in Benin, young leaders talked to local government officials who then made a commitment to fund vouchers. They advocated for 2,000 young people for the first phase of the program.

Local governments are also routinely assessing the management and sustainability of their family planning programs with the RAISE (Reflection and Action to Improve Self-Reliance and Effectiveness) tool introduced by TCI. Based on the results, they implement course correcting actions.

TCI also worked closely with local partners and officials in francophone West Africa to adjust in real time to COVID-19 by following a “business unusual” model, in which cities ensured sustained access to family planning in urban areas despite the pandemic for lasting and cost-efficient results. To do this, the Hub integrated family planning and infection prevention messages through their “I Choose” communications campaign (using testimonials from mayors, health workers, men, women, and adolescents on why they chose family planning), trained local health workers to help community members conduct home visits (decreasing congestion at health facilities), offered universal referrals, provided remote data collection and analysis coaching to city staff, and created opportunities for remote learning and exchange.

Throughout the last five years, TCI updated their website with helpful information and news. You can access all content here or read more:

TCI worked through four regional hubs, including the Francophone West Africa Hub, which is led by IntraHealth International and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health leads The Challenge Initiative. Two Hopkins-affiliated institutions, Jhpiego and the Center for Communication Programs, and the India office of Population Services International (PSI) also serve as in-country accelerator hubs.

Benin Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Niger Senegal Family Planning & Reproductive Health Community Health Youth Engagement The Challenge Initiative

Human Resources for Health: Workforce Analytics for Design and Planning Report

kseaton — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 13:35:08 +0000

Human Resources for Health: Workforce Analytics for Design and Planning Report 2021 kseaton October 13, 2021

This report offers insights for how low- and middle-income countries can use human resources information systems (HRIS) to better design, plan, and manage their health workforces during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report—produced as part of a partnership among IntraHealth International, Vital Wave, and Cooper/Smith—analyzes 20 countries that are experiencing health workforce shortages and highlights the contextual factors that shape their information ecosystems. The authors offer three deep-dive assessments of Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Uganda to showcase the status of HRIS in different geographic, development, and health system contexts.

Download

Countries Burkina Faso Mozambique Uganda

Topics Health workforce development Health Workers

Publisher Vital Wave, in partnership with IntraHealth International and Cooper/Smith

By Meghan Arakelian, Andrew Brown, Alex Collins, Leah Gatt, Sara Walker Hyde, Pamela McQuide, Anna Schurmann, Brendan Smith

Francophone West Africa Adds 3.8 Million Family Planning Users

kseaton — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 16:27:36 +0000

Francophone West Africa Adds 3.8 Million Family Planning Users kseaton June 09, 2021 June 09, 2021

IntraHealth International’s Civil Society for Family Planning (CS4FP) project partnered with nine countries in francophone West Africa to add 3.8 million additional family planning users and doubled the number of women using modern contraceptives in the region.

For the past ten years, CS4FP has been working with strong, high-functioning civil society coalitions, young people, and religious and traditional leaders in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo (Ouagadougou Partnership countries) to collaborate with and advocate to governments to implement their national family planning costed implementation plans (CIPs). The IntraHealth team established and supported national coalitions in all nine Ouagadougou Partnership (OP) countries to unify and strengthen civil society and hold governments accountable for their family planning commitments.

And the project helped build a stronger, more coordinated civil society, which achieved several significant policy changes, including:

Free family planning services in Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo.
Integration of comprehensive sexual education in the national curriculum in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, and Mauritania.
Amendment of the national family planning guidelines in all nine countries to allow community-based distribution of contraception.
Partnership with 285 active religious and traditional leaders and 589 youth ambassadors to raise awareness and break down cultural barriers to family planning.
Engagement with religious and traditional leaders and youth ambassadors in developing the CIPs in their respective countries.

The project’s success can be attributed to CS4FP’s efforts to support, coordinate, and strengthen civil society coalitions (and the civil society organizations they worked with), young people, and religious leaders.

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

CS4FP organized workshops for CSOs on good governance, advocacy, resource mobilization, and fundraising. The project also secured commitments from CSOs to join or create family planning coalitions and provided small-scale grants for family planning advocacy. As part of this effort, CSO coalitions engaged young people and religious and traditional leaders to help encourage family planning in their communities. They developed a governance charter, mobilized resources, and developed key strategies for the future.

And they mobilized resources to stay sustainable—for each $1 provided by CS4FP, the coalitions raised an additional $5 to support their family planning activities.

Youth Ambassadors

CS4FP worked as advocates with youth ambassador networks in every country to ensure that national family planning plans and policies reflected the needs and wants of young people.

To do this, the project trained young people on family planning, social media, strategic planning for community mobilization, and resource mobilization to encourage sustainability. Youth networks were active on social media and digital messaging platforms and wrote blog posts on the CS4FP website to share their personal experiences with their peers.

Many adult networks implemented campaigns in their communities to raise awareness and share information about youth-focused family planning activities. As part of the information-sharing effort, youth participated in intergenerational dialogues in their countries and built a regional network linked to the CSO coalitions. Young leaders also received small-scale grants for family planning promotion.

Religious and Traditional Leaders

The project also worked with religious and traditional leaders in all nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries to encourage family planning. Organized at regional levels through the Alliance des leaders Religieux et Traditionnels pour la Santé et le Développement en Afrique de l’Ouest (Alliance of Religious and Traditional Leaders for the Health and Development of West Africa) with CS4FP support, religious and traditional leaders in the nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries and Chad worked together to develop their family planning strategic plan for the next three years.

They participated in family planning workshops to discuss religious texts and the intersection of religion and family planning, and to dispel myths and misinformation about reproductive health. They then developed booklets with key family planning supportive messages and received small grants for advocacy and community mobilization.

CS4FP’s support to civil society coalitions, youth ambassadors, and religious and traditional leaders helped these groups to become well-versed in family planning advocacy and resource mobilization and allowed them to take more ownership to ensure their autonomy and continued success.

These actions helped the West Africa region exceed their FP2020 goals, the only region to do so. Now, there is greater unity and better collaboration among civil society organizations, youth, religious leaders, and Ministries of Health, which has led to more and sustainable family planning and reproductive health activities in francophone West Africa.

CS4FP was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Dutch Government through the Embassy in Benin.

Benin Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Guinea Mali Mauritania Niger Senegal Togo Family Planning & Reproductive Health Community Health Youth Engagement Civil Society for Family Planning

Developing Composite Indicators for Integrated Family Planning; Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health; and Nutrition Services

kmelton — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 22:02:50 +0000

Developing Composite Indicators for Integrated Family Planning; Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health; and Nutrition Services 2020 kmelton January 04, 2021

IntraHealth's INSPiRE project is designed to catalyze a model of integrated service delivery—and associated performance indicators—into national policy and practice in francophone West Africa. This technical brief describes the development of composite indicators of FP/MNCH/N (family planning; maternal, newborn, and child health; and nutrition) integration for the project.

Download

Countries Benin Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Guinea Mali Mauritania Niger Senegal Togo

Projects INSPiRE

Topics Family Planning & Reproductive Health Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Nutrition

By Marguerite Ndour, Roy Jacobstein, Sujata Bijou

In Burkina Faso, New Community Health Posts Improve Access to Integrated Care

kseaton — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 14:50:12 +0000

In Burkina Faso, New Community Health Posts Improve Access to Integrated Care kseaton November 17, 2020

November 17, 2020

In partnership with the Ministry of Health and community leaders, IntraHealth International establishes Burkina Faso’s first two community health posts.

A mother in Burkina Faso with a sick child walks 6.5 kilometers, on average, to find a health worker. Finding local and available high-quality health services is difficult, especially in rural areas.

The World Health Organization estimates that there is less than 1 physician and fewer than 4 nurses per 10,000 people in Burkina Faso. And while its child mortality rates have declined, the country’s rural geography makes it challenging to promote child health, in part because mothers have to travel great distances to reach health services.

To improve access in rural communities, the government created a community health strategy in 2019 and urged partners to support its realization. The focus of the community strategy is to encourage more people to seek out care and to improve health outcomes, particularly for women and children.

As part of our INSPiRE project and its activities in Burkina Faso’s Pó District, IntraHealth International collaborated closely with the local Ministry of Health officials, village leaders, and community development groups to use the project’s integrated health services model at the community level. And in September 2020, we established the first two community health posts in the country.

Located in Koubongo and Lo-Longo—two towns in Burkina Faso’s Pó District—each health post is staffed with a community health and hygiene agent (someone who monitors the overall health of the community members through house visits) and two community health workers who deliver high-quality essential services and refer clients to higher levels of care as needed.

Now, women and children living in rural southern Burkina Faso have greater access to lifesaving and preventive health care in their communities—all available in one place.

Women and their children wait to receive services at a health center. Photo by Sinkondo Isidore for IntraHealth International.

By and for the community

Community ownership and stakeholder involvement in Koubongo and Lo-Longo is critical to the success and long-term sustainability of these new health posts.

To ensure community ownership, IntraHealth created a joint committee with leaders from the Ministry of Health, local authorities, and community development groups to plan the health posts and monitor their progress. The committee chose the future sites for the health posts and visited Koubongo and Lo-Longo to discuss the vision of the community health strategy.

“The health post is the first contact with the community,” - Kiendrébéogo Patindé

IntraHealth worked with community members to make sure the health posts are staffed with respected and motivated community health workers. With the Ministry of Health, we developed a community health training manual and conducted health worker training that included a 15-day practical internship at one of the nearby primary health centers.

“The health post is the first contact with the community,” says Kiendrébéogo Patindé, head of the Lo-Longo health post. “It offers preventive, promotional, curative, and supportive care. And the training we received has equipped us to better care for children and better understand and prevent health problems.”

In the first month, 75 women and their children visited the posts for services.

The two new health posts began seeing patients in early September and the staff now receive ongoing mentoring, guidance, and resources when needed. In the first month of operation, 75 women and their children visited the posts for services.

The communities of Koubongo and Lo-Longo are commited to this initiative and have mobilized—and continue to mobilize—local resources to provide time, furniture, site renovations, and maintenance to ensure the health posts will make a long-term difference in the lives of their children and the health of their communities. In fact, they already are making a difference. They contributed in-kind support worth over $5,100 for the establishment of the health posts. And the Lo-Longo community saw that their health post needed a waiting area and meeting space—so they built one themselves.

“It was difficult to go to the health center in Tiébélé for treatment because of the distance and poor road conditions, especially in the rainy season,” says Yadouabou Kabouga Cécile." Now that the health post is in the village, if my child doesn't feel well, I quickly run to see the health worker who helps us immediately. I’ve been to the health post twice now.”

The future of health care in Burkina Faso starts here

In mid-September—only two weeks after the health posts opened—the general director of public health, president of the Integration Technical Working Group at the Ministry of Health, and a high-level delegation of authorities visited both sites.

They saw the services being offered, learned more about integrated care from the new health workers, talked with community members at both health posts, and heard firsthand about the communities’ commitment to increasing access to high-quality care.

Now, thanks to IntraHealth’s support, the the country has a successful model upon which to scale up for rural communities around the country.

Isidore Sinkondo and Isidore Ouédraogo contributed to reporting for this piece.

IntraHealth has been working in Burkina Faso since 2018 to improve women’s and children’s health. Our INSPiRE project brings health care closer to rural communities by integrating high-quality essential services such as family planning; maternal, newborn, and child health; and nutrition into health care visits. INSPiRE is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Check out the INSPiRE integrated service delivery model here.

By Marguerite Ndour

Project director, INSPiRE

By Jennifer Martin

International Development Writer and Editor

INSPiRE Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Community Health Burkina Faso

Kiendrébéogo Patindé, head of Lo-Longo health post in Burkina Faso, speaks to a mother at the health post. Photo by Isidore Sinkondo for IntraHealth International.

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TCI’s Francophone West Africa Hub Holds Webinar on Improving Access to Family Planning Among Urban Poor

kseaton — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 14:29:23 +0000

TCI’s Francophone West Africa Hub Holds Webinar on Improving Access to Family Planning Among Urban Poor kseaton October 05, 2020 October 05, 2020

More than 70 program managers, government officials, coaches and staff from The Challenge Initiative (TCI) attended a webinar on Sept. 30, to learn about strategies to expand access to family planning among the urban poor in the Francophone West Africa (FWA) region. The webinar, which was presented in French and included English interpretation, kicked off with a brief introduction to TCI from Hawa Talla, TCI’s chief of party in FWA, before participants heard from Maria Ba, director of the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordinating Unit. After celebrating a decade of achievements in family planning in the region, Ba reflected on inequities in the use of modern contraceptive methods among women of reproductive age, highlighting persistent disparities between the poorest and richest quintiles and rural and urban populations. Ba noted promising opportunities to galvanize local governments and implementing partners to expand access to family planning through high-impact approaches, such as free services, postpartum family planning, and youth-friendly services.

The first panelist, Dr. Zombre Sanon Marcella Valérie, pediatrician and director of family health in Burkina Faso, shared her country’s comprehensive policy framework for family planning, which encompasses strategies to tackle demand generation, service delivery and access, commodities, an enabling environment, coordination, and monitoring and evaluation. Dr. Marcella Valérie then described the context of a decentralized system, where capacity to manage health programming has been transferred to municipalities and regions. In Burkina Faso, municipalities have an essential role to play in family planning, specifically in its resourcing, quality improvement for service delivery, and the implementation of high-impact approaches. Before closing, Dr. Marcella Valérie shared examples of how the country has adapted services as part of the nationwide response to COVID-19, including through the adaptation of counseling to address safety during the pandemic while continuing to ensure informed choice family planning counseling.

Participants then heard from Dr. Moukaila Tchagafou, the director of private sector and community engagement from Amplify-FP’s office in Togo. Dr. Tchagafou shared Amplify-FP’s ambitious strategy to reach more than 10 million women with modern contraceptives. Amplify-FP does this by working with the health system to scale high-impact approaches; mobilizing communities, donors and governments to fund FP programs; and ensuring service quality and coordinating with other partners. The project is leveraging task shifting to provide long-acting reversible contraceptives, postpartum family planning, and tailored services for adolescents and youth to reach their needs. Dr. Tchagafou echoed that Amplify-FP has also faced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting the importance of leveraging community health workers to offer family planning services such as DMPA-SC in homes since many women are hesitant to go to health centers at this time.

Last but not least, participants heard from TCI’s country program manager in Benin, Hugues Gnahoui, who highlighted the challenging context in Francophone West Africa, citing barriers across health systems, as well as the economic, societal, and political levels. Despite these, Gnahoui shared how TCI’s deployment of coaches who work hand-in-hand with key stakeholders from the region’s health systems and municipalities to the community has allowed for the rapid scale up and adaptation of high-impact approaches, including universal referral, special FP days, household mapping, and young transformational leaders, among others. Finally, Gnahoui highlighted the critical role of strengthened collaboration and coordination among family planning and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health programs to ensure the sustainable institutionalization of high-impact approaches in Francophone West Africa.

To learn more about how the Ouagadougou Partnership, Amplify-FP, and TCI are partnering with the Burkinabe government and eight others across Francophone West Africa to expand access to family planning among the urban poor, watch the 75-minute webinar. Stay tuned for additional webinars in this series designed to share implementation guidance and how-to tips related to TCI’s high-impact practices.

This article originally appeared on tciurbanhealth.org on October 2, 2020. You can find it here.

Benin Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Guinea Mali Mauritania Niger Senegal Togo Family Planning & Reproductive HealthPhoto courtesy of The Challenge InitiativeThe Challenge Initiative

New Integrated Services Model Improves Access to Family Planning for Women in West Africa

cbishopp — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 17:57:12 +0000

New Integrated Services Model Improves Access to Family Planning for Women in West Africa cbishopp August 26, 2020 August 28, 2020

More women in West Africa now have greater access to a wide range of services during their visits to health facilities, thanks to a new integrated service delivery model created by IntraHealth International. Our new INSPiRE integration model helps women get the most out of each visit, including services for maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH); nutrition; and family planning.

As part of our work on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded INSPiRE project, IntraHealth and Burkina Faso-based partner IRSS assessed how family planning was being integrated into MNCH and nutrition programs in the nine countries of the Ouagadougou Partnership. The findings revealed some gaps, and the team worked with stakeholders from government, civil society, and nongovernmental organizations to develop a model to better coordinate and adapt service delivery to efficiently and effectively meet the needs of West African women and their children.

“Compartmentalization of care, low competencies of health workers, and the gap in health workforce and health protocols were the main barriers to integrating services,” says Marguerite Ndour, IntraHealth’s project director for INSPiRE. “We understood the need for a one-stop shop of integrated services.”

Immediate postpartum family planning increased by 96% in all INSPiRE-supported facilities in Burkina Faso and Niger from 2018 to 2019.

The INSPiRE integration model includes packages of MNCH, family planning, and nutrition services adapted to each level of the health system, including health worker training curricula and job aids, data collection tools that reinforce integrated service delivery, and virtual and in-person mentoring and supervision.

When implemented, the model increases the number of women who receive services and the range of services they receive during each visit. For example, a woman who comes in for a prenatal visit will also receive counseling on proper nutrition and her postpartum family planning options, creating opportunities to address her priority health needs. In this way, health services are more client-centered, offering women a full package of family planning, nutrition, and maternal health services all in one visit—saving time and money and resulting in a higher standard of care.

The model is getting results. Immediate postpartum family planning increased by 96% in all INSPiRE-supported facilities in Burkina Faso and Niger from 2018 to 2019. And 97% of women seen for a prenatal visit in an INSPiRE-supported facility in Burkina Faso also received family planning counseling.

“The INSPiRE model is a valuable practice,” Ndour says. “We hope to see more Ouagadougou Partnership countries adopting it at large scale—adapting policies and care guidelines for greater impact.”

IntraHealth’s work on the INSPiRE project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Check out the INSPiRE integrated service delivery model here.

Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Niger Family Planning & Reproductive Health Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health NutritionFor many women in West Africa, a trip to the health facility involves traveling many miles from home. Now women can access more services during a single visit, thanks to the new integration model. Photo by Trevor Snapp for IntraHealth International.INSPiRE

INSPiRE Integration Model

cbishopp — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 18:05:34 +0000

INSPiRE Integration Model 2020 cbishopp August 14, 2020

In the INSPiRE model, post partum family planning (PPFP); maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and nutrition services are provided as integral parts of the service package. Learn more in this brief.

Available in English & French.

English

Countries Burkina Faso

Projects INSPiRE

Topics Family Planning & Reproductive Health Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health