New & Underused Methods

A Forecasting Guide for New and Underused Methods of Family Planning provides direction to programs that want to forecast for new and underused methods (NUMs) of family planning. The guide was developed under a project funded through an Innovation Fund grant from the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. The project’s purpose is to develop and disseminate a guide to help countries and reproductive health and family planning programs meet their forecasting needs when trend data is not available.

The forecasting guide equips programs to make the necessary assumptions on which to base projections for any method that is new and/or will be expanded considerably in a particular setting. This guide is widely applicable to NUMs—such as emergency contraception (EC), CycleBeads®, IUDs, female condoms, and implants—in addition to any reproductive health commodity for which use is expected to increase significantly.

The work was supported by the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition’s System Strengthening Working Group and Caucus for New and Underused Methods. The Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition is a global partnership of public, private, and non-governmental organizations dedicated to ensuring that all people in low- and middle-income countries can access and use affordable, high-quality supplies to ensure their better reproductive health.

Download the forecasting guide.