Tagged: access

  • ‘Blended care’: The future of family planning

    In 2021, FHI 360 committed an estimated US$85 million over five years to support the goals of Family Planning 2030 (FP2030), a global movement dedicated to advancing the rights of people everywhere to access reproductive health services safely and on their own terms. As this effort advances, together we must reflect on the question: What is the future of family planning?

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  • How to ensure that hand hygiene gains outlast the pandemic

    Contributors: Henry Omara, Ibrahim Abali, Kenneth Otieno Awuor, Washabiah Chagwa, Peter Gottart, Aeorangajeb Al Hossain and Julia Rosenbaum, FHI 360

    As FHI 360 marks its 50th anniversary, explore our history of solutions and future of possibilities. 

    For years, hand hygiene was a neglected issue within the broader water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector — until COVID-19. During the pandemic, public health messaging has re-emphasized the importance of handwashing and contributed to gains in more people practicing better hand hygiene. But now, we are seeing signs of fatigue and handwashing rates have begun to drop. As the pandemic continues, there is an urgent need to ensure that these gains are not lost. We must create a new normal, one in which hand hygiene is a mainstay in public health interventions. There are three ways to ensure that healthy handwashing behaviors outlast the pandemic.

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  • Good Governance Barometer guides community improvements in Nepal

    Development practitioners know that governance matters, but what is good governance and how can it be measured? FHI 360’s Good Governance Barometer (GGB) is a social accountability and development planning tool designed to bring together stakeholders, ranging from local government officials to community members, to jointly identify problems – such as improving the management of a health clinic – and determine the actions needed to resolve them. In addition, the GGB process produces action plans that strengthen and help measure the effectiveness and performance of local governance.

    FHI 360’s Civil Society: Mutual Accountability Project (CS:MAP), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, partners with civil society and media organizations to foster an accountable, resilient Nepali civil society. The project team is using the GGB to achieve this goal.

    Recently, we traveled to six villages in three rural districts in Nepal – Sindhupalchowk, Rukum and Gulmi – to learn how these communities are using the GGB to improve their public services and achieve this goal. Though the communities we visited were different, we saw some commonalities. Local officials often encountered service delivery challenges for reasons such as limited capacity or resources. When citizens and public officials were empowered to work together using the GGB, however, solutions were more likely to be identified.

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