Mozambique Integrated Family Planning Program
Highlights
- Contraceptives are an effective HIV prevention tool, but Mozambique’s use is low
- We are working with district and provincial health officials to improve family planning services
- The percentage of health facilities experiencing stock outs of contraceptives decreased from 14 percent to 4 percent in six months, to cite one success
The Mozambique government set a goal to increase its modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) to 25 percent by 2015, but its mCPR remained at approximately 11 percent between 2003 and 2011. The challenges hindering the achievement of this target are diverse and complex, and include limited capacity of the Mozambique Ministry of Health (MOH) at different levels to implement essential management systems.
Abt Associates – as a subcontractor to Pathfinder – is strengthening the capacity of provincial and district health offices in Sofala and Nampula provinces to implement key systems that impact the delivery of family planning services. Using our systematic approach, we help provinces and districts assess gaps in the systems, develop quality improvement action plans to address them, and monitor performance to ensure progress.
Our approach targets technical assistance and interventions with precision, helping the Mozambican MOH achieve fast, measurable results.
For example, on average, districts’ compliance with MOH implementation standards for planning, logistics, human resources management, health information systems, and health program management improved from 53 percent to 79 percent in just one year. The percentage of health facilities experiencing stock outs of contraceptives decreased from 14 percent to 4 percent in six months. And Nampula province increased the number of health worker courses registered in the human resources information system threefold in one year.
These early achievements will contribute towards improving access to and quality of family planning services, and ultimately towards increasing mCPR in Mozambique.