Evidence to Action for Strengthened Reproductive Health for Women and Girls

The project aims to strengthen quality family planning and reproductive health service delivery, with a focus on reducing unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services. The project is designed to operate over a five-year period, with the first year spanning from September 30, 2011, to June 30, 2012. The project office was operational from the day of the award, and key staff members initiated work on E2A during the first quarter. These staff members included Linda Casey, Project Director, Halida Akhter, Deputy Project Director, Leah Freij, Senior Gender & Youth Advisor, and Bamikale Feyisetan, M&E Director. Other core staff members, such as Fariyal Fikree, Senior Research Officer, and Jean Christophe Fotso, Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning & Evaluation, also began work on E2A during the first quarter. The project team held a series of internal strategy development meetings to articulate project goals, objectives, context, and priorities. These meetings allowed the staff to review the project proposal, gain a better understanding of the project's goals and objectives, and develop start-up activities. The team also met with USAID's technical priority and cross-cutting area champions to discuss potential areas of focus for the project. The champions outlined technical and cross-cutting area goals and objectives, highlighting potential areas of interest and relevance to E2A's mandate. The project partners, including Pathfinder International, PATH, MSH, IntraHealth, and ExpandNet, met on November 16-17 to formalize the partnership and provide strategic guidance to the Year 1 workplan. During the meeting, the partners discussed the project's goal, objectives, and implementation strategies, as well as the Year 1 workplan and E2A's organizational structure. The meeting also provided an opportunity for the partners to offer suggestions for quick wins and integration of E2A activities into existing programs at the country level. The project team attended the International Family Planning Conference in Dakar, Senegal, where they presented papers related to their involvement in prior activities and attended several sessions to learn about what others are doing in the region and in different countries. The conference provided an opportunity for E2A to be formally launched as a side event, with representatives from USAID/Washington and missions, as well as E2A partners, in attendance. The project aims to increase global support for the use of family planning and reproductive health best practices to strengthen service delivery. The deliverables for Year One include a compendium of global, regional, and country-level alliances and partners, partnerships with RH/FP organizations and policy projects established to promote best practice adoption and scale-up, concept notes developed with E2A collaborating partners, and a scaling-up strategic plan developed for one IBP country. The project team has initiated the development of a strategy for strategic alliances to promote scaling-up FP/RH best practices, identifying high priority partners for E2A BP promotion and initiating information gathering around these partners. The team has also collected and reviewed existing MOUs between E2A consortium partners and global alliances and partners, and has explored ways to build on these MOUs to promote scaling up of best practices.