GBCHealth Honors IRH Partner Cycle Technologies for Commitment to Preventing Unplanned Pregnancies Worldwide

[Originally posted on Cycle Technologies News here]

WASHINGTON—GBCHealth recognized Cycle Technologies as a top finalist in its 2014 Business Action on Health Awards. The company’s “Solutions for Unmet Need in Family Planning” (SUN-FP) program, which is conducted in partnership with the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University, was commended for its impact on global health. Cycle Technologies was honored along with Accenture and Unilever in the Partnership Category.

The award was given at a ceremony following the the Global Health Council’s Leadership Symposium recently in Washington, DC.

The top three finalists in each category were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges representing industry and the non-profit sector.

According to Leslie Heyer, Founder and President of Cycle Technologies who received the award on behalf of the company, “It is a great honor to be recognized for our work. We firmly believe that family planning is a priority in global health. If we can prevent the 85 million unplanned pregnancies which occur each year, we can go a long way towards addressing many of the global health issues that we struggle with today.”

The goal of the SUN-FP initiative is to provide family planning options that meet the needs of women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies. Under SUN-FP, Cycle Technologies and IRH have worked with health programs in over 60 countries to make available simple, effective fertility awareness-based family planning options.  These options include the Standard Days Method® and TwoDay Method® of family planning. To date, 3.5+ million women have used these methods – an estimated 4.5 million unplanned pregnancies have been prevented and over 750,000 women have successfully planned pregnancies.

The program’s focus is on countries with significant unmet need for contraception throughout Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. These countries include, but are not limited to: Benin, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Kenya, India, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, the Philippines, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

In all of these countries, the target population is women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies and are either not using a modern contraceptive method or are not satisfied with the method they are using.  In many countries, the focus is at a nationwide level. In others, the focus is on those regions or sub-groups with the most unmet need for contraception.

Critical success factors for the program include:

• An innovative, woman-centric approach in developing solutions. This differs from traditional “top-down” approaches which tend to emphasize the needs of health providers and programs over end-users.
• Engaging stakeholders throughout the process to support scale-up and sustainability at a local and international level.
• Leveraging the benefits of a public-private collaboration.  IRH, as a renowned non-profit research organization, develops the evidence base and conducts the research needed to ensure that the program meets the needs of beneficiaries appropriately.  Cycle Technologies, as a consumer product company, focuses on providing low cost, high quality products and developing global brands.

The SUN-FP program provides millions of women with basic information and innovative solutions which enable them to manage their fertility, avoid unintended pregnancies and achieve pregnancies when they are ready to conceive. It is meeting the needs of women all over the world, but particularly meeting the needs of those women with the most unmet need for contraception who are most impacted by unplanned pregnancies.  It is helping to empower women, giving them control over their reproductive health, and thereby improving their lives, the lives of their children, and their communities.

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Learn more about Cycle Technologies at www.CycleTechnologies.com.