SMART Advocacy: More than a “Seat at the Table”
Creating a regional pool of facilitators on the SMART Advocacy 2.0 approach in West Africa. For youth activists across West Africa, a “seat at the table” is not enough—young people must be closely involved and engaged in the family planning (FP) and reproductive health (RH) policies and programs that are designed to serve their needs. […]
Interview in july 2021 edition of USAID/West Africa Regional Health Office ParlerHealth Newsletter
Since 2020, Marie Ba has served as the Director of the Ouagadougou Partnership (OP) Coordination Unit and as a leading advocate and actor for women and families in the region. As Director, Marie leads collaboration and coordination among the OP’s stakeholders, including the Ministries of Health in the OP’s nine member countries, civil society organizations […]
PACE Launches Its Policy Communication Training Program in French in West Africa
The PACE Project (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health), funded by USAID and implemented by PRB, debuted its Policy Communication Fellows Program in French in October 2020, in collaboration with the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU). Bridging the Gap Between Research and Policymaking PRB created the program in the 1980s to […]
More women may die from pregnancy complications over poor family planning
Reproductive health stakeholders in Niger State have raised fears over poor funding for family planning and severe funding shortages to Child Spacing Advocacy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic response in the State. The experts say more women may lose their lives from complications due to reproductive health and pregnancy complications. This was contained in a communiqué issued […]
How Senegal is Providing Reproductive Health Services to those Who can Least Afford it
Pregnant with her second child, 30-year-old Ndiabou Niang was enduring pelvic pain, but couldn’t afford to access prenatal care in Diabe Salla, a village on the outskirts of the small town of Thilogne in north-east Senegal. Her husband was unemployed and her earnings of under CFAF 10,000 (17 USD) from selling seasonal fruits in the […]
Using the Demographic Dividend as Anchor to Fight COVID-19 in Africa
The Year 2020 will be remembered as the year that heralded great global changes in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. This debilitating contagion has forced the entire world to rethink the future. Among them are stimulating the global economies and instituting newer social, professional and institutional protocols. The first six months of the year 2020 […]
Universal access to reproductive health care: A global obligation and opportunity
Eleanor Roosevelt once said universal human rights begin in the small places close to home — and there’s no area closer to home than a person’s sexual and reproductive health. Right now, 222 million girls and women around the world have an unmet need for modern contraception. As long as any girl or woman is […]
Progress in family planning in Africa accelerating
A new study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that women in eight sub-Saharan African countries are gaining access to and using modern contraception at a faster rate than previously projected. This rate is well ahead of benchmark goals designed to give access to family planning services to an […]
Giving girls and women the power to decide
Access to information and services for contraception and birth spacing are critical to maternal and child health programming. It is no surprise then, that IDRC is supporting research in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate emerging questions and to propose ways to improve the reproductive health of women and adolescents. Across Africa, there is a significant unmet […]
In West Africa, youth ambassadors serve as family planning advocates
ABIDJAN — International health experts are hopeful that a West African family planning initiative will encourage wider contraceptive use by having young people act as “ambassadors” for family planning, furthering the discussion on reproductive health in the region. West Africa has the world’s lowest contraceptive prevalence rate accompanied by the world’s highest fertility rate. While the […]