Urban Family Planning: Lives Changed

The Measurement, Learning & Evaluation Project (MLE) for the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative project produced a 7-minute video about urban family planning (FP) and what works in FP programme interventions. Intended as an advocacy tool, this video highlights the importance of securing access of high-quality voluntary FP products and increasing client demand for FP services in urban settings. It points to communication-related priorities such as: using data to track, evaluate, and share good practices; ensuring that modern FP options are in stock and affordable (providing counseling to communicate options); fostering learning in the area of FP, using peer-to-peer channels as well as radio, television, and social media that are culturally appropriate and, in some cases, entertaining; conducting community outreach; and securing the commitment of leaders by, first, asking citizens to communicate to them the desire for modern FP methods.

The video, which is available in both English and French, was released on the eve of the London Summit on Family Planning, which was organised by the Gates Foundation and the government of the United Kingdom (UK) in an effort to make available affordable contraceptives to 120 million additional women around the world by 2020. The script was inspired by the What Works in Family Planning: A Systematic Review, which was published in the journal Studies in Family Planning in June 2011. This multimedia presentation was made possible by support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under terms of the MLE Project, which is the evaluation component of the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (Urban RH Initiative), a multi-country programme in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal that aims to improve the health of the urban economically poor. The goal of the MLE project is to promote evidence-based decision-making in the design of integrated FP and reproductive health interventions for the Urban RH Initiative.