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Family Planning and Reproductive Health

Challenge

Population growth outpaces economic growth in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa, straining the ability of health systems to deliver essential health services. Yet funding for family planning services decreased in absolute dollar amounts from 1995 to 2004, while funding for HIV/AIDS and other diseases increased during the same period. Health Systems 20/20 supports effective family planning and reproductive health (RH) programs by assisting countries improve policies and regulations, human resource capabilities, and health information systems, as well as increase financing options.

Approach

Repositioning Reproductive Health is USAID's multilateral initative to mobilize commitment to address the serious problem of unintended pregnancies by strengthening family planning services in sub-Saharan Africa. Health Systems 20/20 has produced a brief which discusses how to ensure that underserved populations can access reproductive health commodities and services for USAID's Office of Population's Ready Lessons II series.

Health Systems 20/20 also contributes to repositioning through reproductive health subaccounts. The project assists local teams conduct RH subaccounts in Rwanda and Uganda. Policymakers use RH subaccounts to increase awareness of funding gaps and to facilitate harmonization and aid alignment at the country level to ensure that sexual and RH services are funded adequately in national budgets. RH subaccounts use the National Health Accounts methodology to track expenditures on RH to answer questions such as:

• How much is spent on reproductive health care?
  
• What is the reliance on donors for reproductive health services and contraceptives?
  
• What proportion of financing for RH comes from private sources?
  
• What is the relationship between expenditures and outputs?