Postabortion Care Family Planning Project

The project aims to advance the state of knowledge and practice of postabortion care (PAC) by strengthening the family planning (FP) component of PAC services and scaling up effective programming within and across countries. The project addresses shortcomings in PAC programs, including the weak delivery of postabortion FP counseling and service delivery, and the lack of guidance on processes for taking effective PAC-FP models to scale. The PAC-FP Project builds upon the wealth of knowledge and lessons learned from PAC programs in various countries, which has led to the global recognition of postabortion FP as a High Impact Practice (HIP) relevant to broader progress toward ending preventable child and maternal deaths (EPCMD). The project's two key results are to strengthen capacity to deliver and support scale-up of comprehensive postabortion FP services and to generate and communicate global knowledge to advance access to a wide variety of FP methods to PAC clients. During the reporting period, October 1, 2015, to September 30, 2016, PAC-FP activities in Tanzania gained momentum, and the project initiated activities in Francophone Africa through a sub-awardee, CEFOREP, based in Dakar, Senegal. In Tanzania, the project launched orientations to the project, training, and baseline research and developed technical approaches to facilitate strengthening of the FP component of PAC in PAC-FP supported sites. The team developed a partnership with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MOHCDGEC) on the mainland Tanzania through support to the FP and MNCH TWGs and establishment of the PAC sub-committee. The project supported the MOHCDGEC in developing a separate PAC-FP curriculum to supplement the current 5-day PAC curriculum, which focuses on developing PAC (MVA) skills only. In August 2016, the PAC-FP project also supported the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Zanzibar in reviving its RHMNCH TWG, which had been dormant for a long time. EngenderHealth was appointed the first secretariat, and PAC-FP, on behalf of EngenderHealth, will fund the TWG for the next 12 months. In the second half of the year, milestone achievements include the completion of a baseline situation analysis in 25 sites of the three regions in which PAC-FP is implementing field activities: Geita, Mwanza, and Zanzibar. The project continued its constructive relationship with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MOHCDGEC) and together developed new national training guidelines on postabortion Family Planning. With this, the project launched its interventions in 25 sites, including technical trainings in the delivery of PAC (MVA) and IUCD and implant services. The project also received confirmation that it would continue to receive field support from USAID/Tanzania to the amount of $800,000 in FY17. In Senegal, the project executed a sub-award with CEFOREP and developed a work plan and Performance Monitoring Plan. The project also developed a concept paper for a special study on postabortion care FP and made the first steps in forming a partnership with the Ministry of Health of Senegal and USAID/Senegal. The project, in collaboration with CEFOREP, convened a regional meeting to revitalize the Francophone PAC Secretariat in June, with 44 participants attending the first meeting. By September, CEFOREP had commenced the regional situation analysis of PAC policy development in the seven countries participating in the Secretariat. The project also developed a research protocol with CEFOREP and received assurance from USAID/Senegal that it will receive $125,000 field support funding in FY2017 to conduct a facility-based study on postabortion FP in collaboration with CEFOREP in Senegal.