Advancing Partners & Communities Revue du Programme Pays: Bénin

The project, funded by USAID and implemented by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. and FHI 360, focused on three main areas: 1) helping Benin achieve its community health objectives; 2) expanding and strengthening the country's essential health services and practices; and 3) institutionalizing and developing community-based family planning. APC has contributed to the remarkable progress made by Benin, forging strong partnerships with the Ministry of Health and other ministries, local administrations, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and communities. The project's activities have improved health in Benin through constant financial and technical support from its donors and international partners, including the United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. APC has provided technical assistance and capacity building to the personnel of three NGOs working in the 10 USAID intervention zones, in rural, urban, and peri-urban areas. The project has trained 28 people in developing work plans and quarterly reports, as well as planning, budgeting, and financial reporting, project monitoring and evaluation, family planning compliance, and project management. The capacity building has improved NGO management, supervision, and support to community health workers, resulting in improved community health outcomes. The project has engaged local and municipal leaders in advocacy for investments in community health at the mayor level, leading to budget lines specifically dedicated to community health activities in 2019. APC has also developed a national community health strategy to guide the package of high-impact interventions (PIHI) in urban and peri-urban communities and organized two national fairs that mobilized over 7,000 people with information on community health interventions and behavior change to seek health care. With APC's support, the Ministry of Health has improved reproductive health indicators by offering family planning services in communities and reducing social barriers that prevented the adoption of family planning. In 2015, APC, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, piloted the community-level offer of Noristerat, a two-month injectable contraceptive, by community health workers providing vaccination sensitization services in health training. An evaluation of the pilot project showed that community health workers could safely and effectively administer injectable contraceptives and offer family planning services, and that women were satisfied with these services.