FAM Project: Pioneering strategic scale-up of reproductive health innovations

For over 25 years, IRH has been striving to expand family planning choices to meet the needs of women and men worldwide; advance gender equality by helping women and men across the lifecycle learn about and take charge of their reproductive health; and involve communities in sexual and reproductive health interventions that improve their wellbeing. Through the USAID-funded Fertility Awareness-based Methods (FAM) Project, we have been able to make significant progress in achieving this mission. In September, the FAM Project will close its doors, but it leaves behind stories of success and noteworthy lessons for the sexual and reproductive health field.

A defining characteristic of the FAM Project has been its pioneering role in strategic scale-up. Since 2007, IRH and our partners have planned, studied, and evaluated the systematic introduction and expansion of the Standard Days Method^® (SDM) in five countries around the world.

Now, we are ready to share our findings with the global health community.

On July 25, 2013, IRH will convene an event on strategic scale-up where participants will:

• Share information/lessons learned about scaling up a reproductive health innovation using a system-focused approach—what worked and what didn’t work
• Reflect on different ways of working under donor-funded projects to achieve sustainable scale-up
• Engage participants on how to do business differently to achieve sustainable scale-up
• Discuss how these lessons learned can help the field develop a better understanding of underlying principles; monitoring, learning, and evaluation strategies; and the role of partnerships in scale-up

If you are unable to join us on July 25, discover more about the FAM Project’s achievements through the following resources.

Watch these short films about SDM’s journey from introduction to scale in Rwanda and India.

Read the personal stories of SDM users, providers, and program managers.

Learn about the scale-up process of SDM and results in each of the five focus countries—Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, India, Mali, Rwanda—or in this case study published by ExpandNet.

Stay tuned to the live conversation on July 25 through our Tweet Chat using #SRHscaleup and @IRH_GU. 

The FAM Project builds upon the experience of previous USAID-funded projects in which IRH developed, tested, and introduced new family planning options in diverse programs in over 20 countries worldwide.