Other Completed Projects with Family Planning Component

AcQual III

Dates: Initial Phase began in 2014

Completed 2018

Role: Prime Recipient

Donors: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, David and Lucille Packard Foundation

This project built on Tulane’s previous work in establishing a large-scale network of community-based FP services in the provinces of Kinshasa and Kongo Central and in training nursing students to deliver family planning services at the community level. Three local partner organizations (SANRU, ABEF-ND, and the National Program for Military Health) implement the primary service delivery activity – Lelo PF (which means “family planning today” in the local language of Lingala) – in collaboration with the authorities of the local health zones. During this outreach activity which takes place regularly in 34 of the 35 health zones in Kinshasa and 12 of the 31 health zones in Kongo Central, nursing graduates and community-health workers counsel prospective clients on family planning, provide a range of six contraceptive methods (implants, injectables, CycleBeads, condoms, pills, and emergency contraception, as well as implant removal services at the referral facilities); they refer clients to fixed facilities if needed.

ASSP (Accès aux Soins de Santé Primaires) Project

Dates: 2013-2019

Role: Independent Evaluator

Donor: UK Aid

The primary objective of the ASSP project was to improve reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health in the DRC while strengthening the health system through enhanced health service delivery and quality, increased empowerment and accountability in health service planning and delivery, improved access to health services, and increased and sustainable access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation. The ASSP project was implemented by IMA World Health in three regions of the DRC. Tulane conducted an independent impact evaluation and several formative and operations research studies related to the ASSP project.

Research on access to Emergency Contraception

Dates: 2015-2018

Role: Prime Recipient

Donors: International Consortium for Emergency Contraception, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation

After completing a landscaping assessment of the legal, policy and service delivery situation for Emergency Contraception (EC) in DR Congo, Tulane conducted two rounds of systematic research at the request of national and international stakeholders. The first round looked EC awareness and behaviors among women living in Kinshasa [1] and at the availability of EC at registered pharmacies throughout the city [2]. The next round of research built on findings from these two previous studies to conduct a large mystery clients study at 850+ informal drug stores operating in Kinshasa, which measured both EC availability and quality of FP counseling provided to young female clients.

Using satellite imagery and geocoded survey data to improve measurement approaches and targeting programming for family planning

Dates: 2016-2017

Role: Prime Recipient

Donor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The objective of this project was to replicate aspects of the work conducted by the BMGF Polio Team Vaccination Tracking System (VTS) and apply it for FP services in Kinshasa, DRC, in order to systematically highlight missed settlements and underserved areas. In addition, this project explored ways to use GIS techniques in order to produce estimates for current population at the health zone (HZ) level.

The research team used supervised satellite imagery classification to create a more detailed version of the Built Urban Areas shapefile for Kinshasa detailing seven classes of residential neighborhoods in Kinshasa based on land-use and population density.

This new spatial data was used produce revised estimates of Kinshasa’s population at the HZ level using both population density classification and available micro-census resources. The results have been used to triangulate other populations estimates used in research surveys as well as to support coverage analysis of FP programming activities.