Leading Voices in Securing Reproductive Health Supplies: An Advocacy Guide and Toolkit

The Coalition advocates for greater political and financial commitment to support long-term availability of high-quality RH supplies. If developing countries do not adequately address the growing shortfall in funding for contraceptives, they face the risk of losing 30 years of progress marked by dramatic declines in fertility and significant increases in contraceptive prevalence rates. Inadequate or poor-quality RH supplies will have unnecessary adverse effects on the quality of RH care, maternal and RH outcomes, and people's ability to maintain their reproductive health. Vulnerable populations will experience the most severe consequences of failure to secure adequate RH supplies. As such, advocacy messages must be hard-hitting and designed to galvanize policymakers into action, not tomorrow or the day after, but today. The Coalition has set forth for securing long-term availability of high-quality RH supplies, and this guide and toolkit offer general information and guidance on advocacy communication that has been useful to many groups interested in advocating for improved RH policy environments. The guide includes examples and templates of advocacy tools targeted specifically to the aims the Coalition has set forth for securing long-term availability of high-quality RH supplies. The guide and toolkit are divided into several sections, including The How-to Guide - Advocacy for Ensuring Reproductive Health Supplies: A Planning Guide, which provides a brief review of key concepts and points to consider when preparing to launch an advocacy initiative. Section I of the Toolkit - Advocacy Messages to Support Reproductive Health Supplies Initiatives, describes five global scenarios that depict different contexts in which the Coalition's country representatives and its partners may find themselves operating while ensuring the availability of RH supplies. These contexts include situations of limited attention given to FP/RH issues due to competing resource priorities, resulting in high unmet need; countries with high HIV prevalence and diverted attention and funding; countries facing donor phaseout; health systems going through a decentralization process; and situations of high abortion and low fertility rates. The guide includes matrices of the respective contexts and key RH supplies objectives (or "asks"), with recommendations for tailoring the messages depending on context and the particular RH supply objective. Section II of the Toolkit - Advocacy Tools for Ensuring Reproductive Health Supplies: Overview, Templates, and Examples, includes descriptions of and links to examples or templates for five types of advocacy tools: PowerPoint presentations; policy briefs; fact sheets; talking points/briefing notes; and press releases and media advisories. The sample templates demonstrate how the different contexts, target audiences, and objectives affect the message. The Coalition maintains an electronic Information Bank that includes hyperlinks to many resources related to RH supplies and contraceptive security. The guide and toolkit aim to provide advocates with the necessary information and tools to effectively communicate the importance of ensuring reproductive health supplies and to persuade policymakers to take action.