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Civil Society Engagement

HP+ More recent Civil Society Engagement publications are available.

  • Civil society organizations (CSOs) can make an important contribution to health programs and public welfare by encouraging governments to involve citizens and technical specialists in identifying and addressing important human needs. Good governance exists when decisionmakers are accountable to the public; processes are transparent; institutions and information are directly accessible; and the government is able to serve the needs of its people effectively. The Health Policy Project prepared this brief to provide leaders of CSOs working in family planning, HIV care and treatment, and maternal health with guidance on ensuring good governance, social accountability, and transparency.

    This is one of two briefs focused on advancing country ownership for improved health. The other brief can be accessed here: Networking and Coalition Building for Health Advocacy: Advancing Country Ownership.

  • Over the past decade, large scale global health initiatives have had great successes in supporting improved health outcomes in many countries. Each country is unique in building its approach to public health programming, but these partnerships are beginning to identify common principles toward working together. In fall 2012, a consultation cosponsored by amfAR, the Health Policy Project (HPP), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Africa Region, and Planned Parenthood Global brought together multi-disciplinary stakeholders to identify priorities and models for ensuring civil society engagement in health decision making. This report presents the findings of the consultation, examines civil society’s role in sustaining public health and transitioning to the country ownership model, and offers recommendations for civil society, governments, donors, and international development partners.

  • With support from the USAID-funded Health Policy Project, the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA) is striving to promote midwifery and improve midwives' working conditions by (1) influencing policymakers, (2) involving the media, (3) engaging youth, (4) mobilizing the community, and (5) strengthening the capacity of midwives as advocates at the global, national, and local levels. This brief demonstrates how advocacy approaches can lead to a more supportive environment for midwives and ultimately better maternity care and birth outcomes. Advocates need to inform policymakers of the priority issues needing their attention and the steps necessary to improve midwifery. The brief includes a number of examples for advocates to learn from and include in their advocacy strategies. It also provides an opportunity for WRA to share advocacy learning and models with global partners to foster continued and additional advocacy efforts that are needed to further position midwifery as a central component of integrated maternal and newborn health systems.  

  • For several decades, civil society organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria have been advocating for increased resources for reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) services and commodities. Many people assume that once policymakers make a public commitment to provide funding for a specific purpose, the funds are assured. However, such a commitment is only the first step in securing budgetary allocation. The necessary steps include formal approval for the budgetary allocation, inclusion of the funds in the approved budget, release of the funds for the program, and expenditure of the funds intended.

    CSOs can play a key role in ensuring that public funds are used for the intended purpose and actually reach the intended beneficiaries. To do so, they need to understand the budgetary process and the role of nongovernmental stakeholders in the process. The inner workings of the state-level budget process in Nigeria are not well understood, and there is little documentation of the process to provide guidance.

    To help CSOs in Nigeria understand and actively participate in the budget process, the Health Policy Project conducted an assessment to identify the differences between theory and practice in state-level budgeting. In doing so, several entry points emerged for CSOs to make a difference in FP/RH funding; the key tasks identified include

    • Advocate for increased funds for FP/RH programs and commodities
    • Ensure that adequate funds are budgeted, obligated, and released in a timely manner
    • Track state-level budget expenditures, especially funds actually expended for FP/RH services and commodities
    • Hold policymakers and program managers accountable for the effective use of public funds

  • Based on the UTETEZI Project curriculum, Advocacy for Improved Access to Services for MSM: A Workshop Curriculum for a Multi-Stakeholder Policy Advocacy Project, this advocacy for policy change guide is designed for use by MSM (men who have sex with men) groups, community-based organizations (CBOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), and individuals working in HIV and MSM health to help them advocate regionally, nationally, and locally for improved HIV and health-related MSM policies. In particular, this guide can serve as an important tool for CSOs working on MSM issues in hostile legal environments.

  • The Blueprint for the Provision of Comprehensive Care for Trans People and Trans Communities in Asia and the Pacific (the Blueprint) is a document with far-reaching potential and applications in trans health and human rights in the region. The purpose of the Blueprint is to strengthen and enhance the policy-related, clinical, and public health responses for trans people in Asia and the Pacific. The primary audience for the Blueprint is health providers, policymakers and governments. The information within the Blueprint could also serve donors, bi- and multilateral organizations and trans and other civil society organizations.

    The Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the USAID-funded Health Policy Project (HPP) collaboratively developed the Blueprint. This document is the third in a series of regional trans health Blueprints, and builds on what was produced in Latin America and the Caribbean by the Pan American Health Organization, the Regional Office of the World Health Organization for the Americas.

  • HPP received funding to work in three countries in the Central Asia Region (CAR)—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan—to support and strengthen collaboration and coordination between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governments working together to identify linkages and referral protocols for HIV-related health and social services. This desk review and analysis is intended to provide a detailed review of recently published assessment reports (2007–2012) conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan to serve as a resource for USAID (CAR) and other groups interested in identifying priority HIV policy areas.

  • This brochure provides an overview of a web-based platform that civil society organizations in Ghana can use to report cases of discrimination to the country's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). The system, developed with support from the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project, links civil society to CHRAJ through case tracking, follow-up, and data reporting. The brochure provides information on why someone would submit a complaint, how to submit a complaint, and how to follow up on a complaint. It is meant solely for informational purposes. Step-by-step guidance on how to use the system is provided by the Discrimination Reporting System User Guide.

  • The Discrimination Reporting System User Guide outlines how civil society organizations in Ghana can use a web-based platform to report cases of discrimination to the country's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). The system, developed with the support of the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project, links civil society to CHRAJ through case tracking, follow-up, and data reporting. The user guide provides civil society organizations with a visual description of how to navigate the online system, submit complaints on behalf of clients, track the progress of complaints, and generate reports. It will be distributed to civil society organizations in Ghana that support people living with HIV and key populations.

  • These evidence-based advocacy materials, based on Spectrum projections, were produced under the USAID-funded Health Policy Project by the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria to support national- and state-level advocacy efforts aimed at increasing access to family planning.

  • The Sub-Saharan Africa MSM Engagement (SAME) Tool was developed based on literature reviews and expert/technical inputs from the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project (HPP), the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, amfAR, African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR), and USAID. In collaboration with eight leading MSM organizations—one each from Rwanda, Malawi, Togo, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, and Cameroon—HPP and AMSHeR piloted the tool from April to June 2013, in both English and French. This poster summarizes the pilot study, and was presented at the 20th International AIDS Conference in July 2014.

  • This guide is intended to inform civil society organisations (CSOs) in Malawi on health budget advocacy, serving as an introduction and easy reference guide. The guide describes how health budgets are developed in Malawi at both the national and district levels, and suggests entry points through which advocates can seek to influence government health budgets.

    Content in this guide was adapted from the budget advocacy guide for civil society organisations in Tanzania, developed under the Health Policy Project’s predecessor project, the Health Policy Initiative.

  • Discrimination against people living with HIV and key populations is a common and challenging problem. A year ago, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in Ghana launched a web-based system to provide a simple way for reporting HIV- and key population–related discrimination with help from the USAID and PEPFAR-supported Health Policy Project (HPP). This brief describes the outcomes of the discrimination reporting system after one year and ways forward. 

    Click here to read a blog on HPP's work on the CHRAJ stigma and discrimination reporting portal.  

  • The USAID-funded Health Policy Project applied its new ImpactNow model to estimate the near-term benefits of achieving family planning goals in Kenya. This PowerPoint presentation describes some key benefits associated with achieving these goals, and offers recommendations for the government of Kenya and development partners to increase investment in and improve family planning services in the country.

  • The Health Policy Project assembled a technical team to facilitate a three-day workshop on integrating gender and gender-based violence (GBV) into HIV prevention and OVC programs for Mozambican organizations in Maputo in February 2012. The worshop applied five participatory and interactive modules to build the capacity of participants to use practical skills and tools to integrate GBV prevention and responses into existing HIV programs. The training methodologies sought to explicitly reveal the links between GBV and HIV risk and increase skills to integrate evidence-based gender and GBV practices into existing HIV programs. The workshop's results demonstrated the great interest in and need for GBV integration into current programs. They also informed the development of capacity-strengthening plans for each of the seven participating NGOs and provided a foundation for addressing gender and GBV in HIV programs for staff of the FHI-360 Capable Partners Program (CAP). 

  • In Jamaica, Woman Inc., with support from the Health Policy Project (HPP), implemented a pilot project to assess the feasibility of integrating screenings and referrals for gender-based violence (GBV) with clinical services for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The links between GBV and HIV are widely acknowledged, but relatively few people access services for GBV, especially women and key populations with high HIV burdens such as men who have sex with men and sex workers. The pilot project involved gender training for healthcare providers and community agencies, adaptation and implementation of a GBV screening tool, and mapping and strengthening of GBV referral systems. The findings, summarized in this brief, indicate that the pilot enhanced the capacity of HIV healthcare providers to improve access to GBV support services and better meet the needs of their patients, especially women and key populations.

  • To improve FP services and availability in Jordan, the Higher Population Council (HPC), with support from the Health Policy Project and in cooperation with all stakeholders, developed the National Reproductive Health/Family Planning Strategy 2013–2017. The strategy assesses the reproductive health (RH)/family planning (FP) environment in Jordan and describes the interventions required to improve RH/FP services and use and ultimately achieve the goals of the Demographic Opportunity Policy.

    This brief summarizes the three main challenges to Jordan’s FP program—policy, access, and beliefs and behaviors—and outlines the interventions planned to address them.

  • Local Capacity Initiative Facilitated Discussion and Capacity Assessment Tool: Facilitator's Manual The purpose of this manual, prepared by Advancing Partners & Communities with support from the Health Policy Project, is to help determine technical assistance needs and to conduct an assessment of an organization’s policy, advocacy, and organizational systems capacity. The assessment consists of a facilitated self-assessment as well as optional stakeholder interviews. The tool is divided into five major sections (LCI outcome areas); four of these areas focus on critical elements for advocacy and one focuses on overall organizational capacity. Additionally, there are in-depth domains associated with each larger outcome, which can be used to further review capacity.

    Policy Advocacy Rapid Assessment Tool for CSOs This tool is used to facilitate an overarching conversation with small to medium sized CSO regarding policy advocacy capacity and priorities. The tool addresses six major topics and seven cross cutting themes related to policy advocacy. Findings identified by this conversation can be used to design capacity development strategies.

  • Networks and coalitions can be effective in mobilizing political will, influencing policy and financing, and strengthening health programs. By sharing resources and workload, networks and coalitions can take advantage of their members' capabilities and skills to plan and implement joint advocacy campaigns, present a unified front, and make collective demands to government. The Health Policy Project prepared this brief to provide leaders of civil society organizations with guidance on working within networks and coalitions to advocate for improved family planning, HIV care and treatment, and maternal health policies and programs.

    This is one of two briefs focused on advancing country ownership for improved health. The other brief can be accessed here: Accountability and Transparency for Public Health Policy: Advancing Country Ownership.

  • In 2014, the Health Policy Project, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), supported the development of a subnational family planning advocacy materials in Adamawa, Nigeria.Using the Resources for the Awareness of Population Impacts on Development (RAPID) model, this brief highlights how smaller families would relieve pressure on the provision of primary education and public health services, and alleviate food insecurity as well as unemployment in Adamawa state by 2050.

  • The PANCAP Stigma Framework was developed with assistance from the USAID- and PEPFAR-supported Health Policy Project in response to regional and national requests made to PANCAP for direction on responding to stigma and discrimination in the Caribbean. Stigma and discrimination continue to be key drivers of the Caribbean HIV epidemic and are major obstacles to effective responses. Their impact on Caribbean health and development is wide ranging. HPP provided technical and financial support for PANCAP partners with experience in reducing stigma and discrimination to review existing frameworks and Caribbean tools to inform the drafting of a comprehensive approach. A small group of technical experts from HPP drafted the initial framework to meet the needs of small countries, island states, and emerging nations. This framework has initially engaged and will serve to strengthen the capacity of national HIV programs to develop, implement, and monitor effective policies and programs, and to address HIV in a sustainable manner at the national level. The PANCAP Stigma Framework is built on three components, health and development, collective empowerment, and social justice and gender equality, which are crucial in addressing the Caribbean response to HIV-related stigma and discrimination. 

  • The 2015 Country Operational Plan (COP) Guidance includes specific guidelines for engagement of PEPFAR country teams with civil society organizations (CSOs) in the planning and development of the COP.  Following the finalization of the 2015 COP process, the USAID- and PEPFAR- funded Health Policy Project was requested by the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy to conduct an analysis on civil society’s perception of their engagement in the PEPFAR country team Country Operational Plan (COP) planning and to solicit recommendations for future PEPFAR country team engagement with civil society. This report documents responses received from an online survey and in depth interviews with representatives from civil society organizations located in PEPFAR countries.

  • Males who have sex with males (MSM), transgender (TG) people, and sex workers (SWs) are at higher risk for HIV transmission than other individuals, even in generalized epidemics. Structural and policy issues have created barriers for MSM/TG/SWs in seeking services and adopting individual and community harm reduction strategies. Published by the Health Policy Project and the African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Policy Analysis and Advocacy Decision Model for HIV-Related Services: Males Who Have Sex with Males, Transgender People, and Sex Workers is a collection of tools that helps users assess and address policy barriers that restrict access to HIV-related services for MSM/TG/SWs.

    Designed to help country stakeholders build a public policy foundation that supports access to and implementation and scale-up of evidence-informed services for MSM/TG/SWs, the Decision Model helps to clearly identify and address policy barriers to services. Its policy inventory and analysis tools draw from the extensive body of international laws, agreements, standards, and best practices related to MSM/TG/SW services, allowing the assessment of a specific country policy environment in relation to these standards. This customizable, in-depth, and standardized approach will build stakeholders’ capacity to identify incremental, feasible, near-term opportunities to improve the legal environment and the resulting quality of and access to services for MSM/TG/SWs while long-term human rights strategies are implemented.

    A companion decision model geared specifically toward people who inject drugs (Policy Analysis and Advocacy Decision Model for HIV-Related Services: People Who Inject Drugs) is also available in English and Russian. 

  • The Policy Analysis and Advocacy Decision Model for Services for Key Populations in Kenya provides stakeholders—including policy makers, service providers, and advocates—with tools to assess and advocate policies that govern accessibility and sustainability of services for key populations (men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, and transgender people). By comparing existing Kenyan policies to the global normative guidelines and best practices, the model reveals gaps and challenges in implementation. This document, prepared by the USAID and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project for the National AIDS Control Council of the Ministry of Health, analyzes more than 120 policy and program documents related to HIV and key populations.  It also makes policy recommendations for enhanced service scale-up and uptake by key populations in Kenya. 

  • This report describes two pilot technical assistance programs implemented by the USAID-funded Health Policy Project to strengthen policy development and implementation related to contraceptive security at decentralized levels in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Over a two-year period, three regional and municipal committees engaged a multisectoral group of political leaders, technocrats, civil society representatives, and healthcare providers to collaboratively assess policy and funding barriers related to family planning and design and implement solutions. The compilation of experience and results is intended to inform programs to strengthen contraceptive security at the decentralized level in other settings, whether through committees or other mechanisms. As decentralization continues to evolve in Latin America and other regions, it is critical to strengthen subnational capacity in the public sector and civil society to ensure that high-quality and equitable services are demanded, delivered, and monitored at all levels of the health system in a manner that promotes sustainability and local ownership.

  • The Jamaican Network of Seropositives (JN+)—with support from the Jamaican Ministry of Health’s National HIV/STI Program (GIPA Unit) and the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project—created a capacity-building curriculum led by people living with HIV (PLHIV). The curriculum aims to implement and advocate for Positive Health, Dignity, and Prevention (PHDP) and promote community leadership at the country level.

    PHDP—a global policy framework authored by the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) and UNAIDS in 2011—advances a holistic framework for PLHIV to manage their health, advocate for high-quality HIV services, and prevent onward HIV transmission. PHDP provides a concrete framework and road map that is especially relevant to meeting current global and national care and treatment goals for HIV—and to making “combination prevention” a reality.

  • The Health Policy Project designed this training manual for civil society organizations implementing HIV prevention and orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) care and support programs in Mozambique. The manual aims to raise awareness and sensitize participants on the concepts and interlinkages between gender inequality, HIV, and gender-based violence (GBV). By doing so, the organizations will better understand and appreciate the influence of gender and violence on HIV- and OVC–related issues and will be in a better position to develop and implement program strategies and interventions that will promote gender equality and help prevent GBV. The manual contains eight sessions covering a range of topics from a basic introduction to gender to developing a multisectoral response to gender-based violence.

  • Since 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development's Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Contraceptive Security (CS) Initiative has fostered country ownership through CS committees established in eight priority countries. Among the countries in the LAC region, Paraguay’s experience establishing and strengthening a national CS committee serves as a success story for the improvement of reproductive health indicators in a context of increased country ownership. This brief documents the steps taken to ensure that in less than a decade, the CS Committee in Paraguay successfully fostered an enabling policy environment that led to increased financing and political commitment to making contraceptive supplies more easily available.

    This brief is based on the following report (only available in Spanish): Sistemitización de la Experiencia del Comité DAIA Paraguay.

  • This policy brief  highlights (1) the advocacy process used to generate increased funding commitments for  family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) commodities in Uganda, (2) the steps needed to ensure that the allocated funds fully translate into procurement of FP commodities, and (3) how advocates can sustain the momentum over the coming years. The information can be used to guide advocates in sub-Saharan Africa on addressing critical issues in the financing of FP/RH.

  • La graduación de USAID fue un proceso planificado que permitió enfocar acciones hacia cuestiones estratégicas, sin embargo también se constituyó en una oportunidad de mejora y crecimiento que fue identificada por el gobierno de Paraguay y sustentada por su voluntad y compromiso político hacia la planificación familiar. Este documento recopila la experiencia del Comité para la Disponibilidad Asegurada de Insumos Anticonceptivos (DAIA) en Paraguay para comprender cómo su desempeño desembocó en resultados exitosos y describe cuáles fueron los factores clave y su interacción, para obtener tales resultados. Los logros alcanzados reforzaron la confianza de los integrantes del Comité DAIA y naturalmente trascendieron el ámbito de trabajo del mismo. Obteniendo el reconocimiento de las autoridades e incluso traspasando las fronteras, puesto que hoy en día el caso de Paraguay está considerado como un modelo para los demás países que impulsan la DAIA en la región.

    Un sumario de este informe en ingles, está disponible en: Promoting Country Ownership through Latin American Contraceptive Security Committees: Paraguay Case Study.

  • The right to freely and responsibly decide if, when, and how many children to have has been enshrined in numerous international treaties, conventions, and political consensus documents. Governments are obligated to manifest their international commitments to family planning and reproductive health and rights through their policies and funded programs, at the national, state/province, and local level. Yet the reality on the ground is that for most countries worldwide, from the least to the most developed countries, governments fail in many respects to operationalize these international commitments.

    In recent years, the international development community has turned its attention to the role of accountability in achieving greater impact of development interventions.Social accountability is characterized primarily by the active involvement of citizens engaging with government decision-making processes to ensure government fulfills its commitments and implements policies and programs appropriately. While the FP/RH community has a long-standing commitment to advocacy and social mobilization to advance reproductive rights, some social accountability concepts and interventions are relatively new to the FP/RH community. This guidance document is a primer for CSOs working in health that are looking to initiate or expand activities aimed to hold government entities accountable for delivering on their national and international commitments related to family planning/reproductive health and rights.

    This document provides:

    • An overview of current concepts of social accountability.

    • A synopsis of common methodologies and tools used by civil society to engage in social accountability.

    • Ideas and examples on how social accountability can be used to further FP/RH within a country.

    • Suggestions on what elements CSOs might take into consideration when deciding to implement a particular methodology

    • A selection of documents and resources that may be helpful in implementing social accountability activities.

  • At the Ouagadougou Partnership and Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) meetings, governments committed to improving access to family planning services and information. Costed Implementation Plans (CIPs) for family planning services and information provide a framework and tools for governments to achieve their international family planning commitments. This booklet, prepared by the Health Policy Project, highlights the methodology behind CIPs, walks through 10 steps for designing and implementing a national CIP for family planning, and shares experiences from seven African countries that have developed national CIPs for family planning to inform their decision making. It is estimated that implementation of the CIPs will accelerate each country's progress toward both achieving its target contraceptive prevalence rate and reducing maternal and child mortality.  

  • The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supports the implementation of the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a United States government (USG) initiative to save the lives of people around the world who are suffering from HIV and AIDS, in almost 100 countries. Since 2003, PEPFAR has worked with these countries to create systems that have stabilized the HIV epidemic by preventing new infections and providing care, support, and treatment to those infected and affected by HIV. Due to the progress that has been made in Guyana, the PEPFAR program will transition from a service delivery model to one that provides targeted technical assistance over the next five years (2013–2017). This will also result in a shift in USG funding, inclusive of USAID.

    Within this context, there is an identified need to clearly define roles and responsibilities for all key stakeholders and delineate next steps in the transition to ensure long-term sustainability of HIV prevention, care, and support services and the continuum of care for people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.  Toward this effort, the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Project (HPP) supported PEPFAR Guyana by conducting a high-level assessment of HIV and AIDS NGOs, relevant private sector entities, the Ministry of Health (MOH), the National AIDS Program Secretariat (NAPS), and other relevant line ministries in Guyana. The aim of this assessment was to document the country’s capacity gaps and needs to support the transition of HIV services from donors to the country, and suggest approaches for ensuring an ethical transition and sustainability of these services over time.

  • The 2013 general election in Kenya took place on March 4, 2013, giving citizens a chance to elect new leaders, including a new President, for a five-year term. To help maintain and further progress in the health area, the Health Policy Project documented the pledges, commitments, and promises made by the 2013 presidential candidates about the health sector in Kenya. This report outlines what the candidates and their parties promised to do about different health issues and how these promises align with current health sector aspirations described in the government’s existing short- and long-term policy and planning documents. The goal is to provide stakeholders in the health sector with a reference point from which to hold the incoming government accountable on its public promises and a tool for advocacy in pursuing further commitments that can improve the public health sector.

  • Decentralization of family planning is a critical concern for policymakers as international family planning commitments and the expansion of decentralization reforms become more common. Building on the latest research, this paper presents a family planning and decentralization analytical framework that was developed by the USAID-funded Health Policy Project to help key stakeholders better understand family planning decentralization processes, identify potential challenges and opportunities, and guide decentralization reforms. 

  • The Health Policy Project (HPP) in Jordan focuses on supporting national-level awareness raising, resource mobilization, and policy reform to improve the quality of and access to family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) services. HPP supports the Higher Population Council (HPC), Ministry of Health (MOH), and other key stakeholders to create an enabling environment for FP/RH through improved multisectoral engagement and coordination, data use, and policy reform. A particular area of focus is healthy birth spacing. Nearly one third of all births in Jordan are spaced less than two years apart, and more than half are spaced less than three years apart. Statistics show that an interval between births shorter than 33 months lowers the chance of survival for the mother and child. The higher rates of maternal and child mortality and morbidity associated with short birth intervals create burdens for families and society as a whole. The practice of healthy birth spacing is increasing in Jordan, but not fast enough. Wide adoption of healthy birth spacing in Jordan will reduce neonatal, infant, child and maternal mortality; improve the health of mothers and their offspring; enhance the ability of fathers to care for their families; and make communities healthier and stronger. This package of materials present the research evidence for healthy birth spacing and suggest what Jordan can do in the spheres of policy, education, and health services to promote the practice.

  • In the Caribbean, transgender persons are disproportionately affected by HIV. Moreover, high levels of stigma and discrimination create significant barriers and make it difficult for them to access the health care services they need. Most clinicians in this region also do not receive any training on transgender health or broader issues of sexuality and diversity, further limiting availability of transgender-friendly services.

    In response, HPP has developed a training manual for healthcare workers in Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic to strengthen their capacity to provide high-quality, stigma-free health services for transgender persons. This brief highlights key content from each of the chapters contained in the manual.

  • Universities and research centers have traditionally been places of knowledge generation rather than knowledge translation. Though they produce important research findings, these institutions have not traditionally played a strong role in disseminating this information to key decisionmakers. In many cases, this paradigm is changing. Advances in information technology and globalization have eased the flow of technical information between researchers and policymakers, amplifying their voices in important policy discussions. However, there are currently no clear guidelines on how universities can ensure their research findings are utilized in health decision making. Documenting the ways in which universities have sought to bridge the research-to-policy divide can provide useful guidance to institutions looking to do the same. This white paper, prepared by the Health Policy Project with support from USAID and PEPFAR, provides an overview of three models of university engagement in advocacy and examples of each approach. It also describes practices from non-educational institutions whose frameworks could be useful for linking research to policy or opportunities for partnerships. Finally, it identifies key points for universities to consider when designing an approach to health advocacy. 

  • The Empowering Women Leaders for Country-Led Development program fostered yearly cadres of women champions from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda to engage in family planning and reproductive health decision making and to advocate for policy change. The 70 alumnae represent civil society organizations, government ministries, faith-based organizations, and elected bodies at local and national levels and comprise a wide range of backgrounds and experience. The program included a three-week intensive skills-building workshop focused on personal leadership, advocacy, and networking skills; seed funds to implement local advocacy; one year of south-to-south coaching by a Plan USA-trained coach; and ongoing technical assistance and networking support. This brief explores the program's methods, approach, and results.