Our Programs
Expand FP II
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
| 2019-2021
EngenderHealth worked to promote access to and voluntary adoption of family planning (FP) among postpartum clients, in partnership with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to the World Population Review, the population of the DRC is young and growing, with the third-highest fertility rate globally at 6.11 children per woman. According to FP2020, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate in the DRC is 15.5%.
Since 2019, EngenderHealth has worked with the MOH and partners Humana People to People and Le Réseau des Educateurs des Enfants et Jeunes de la Rue (REEJER) to scale up postpartum family planning (PPFP) through the ExpandFP II program. We have integrated PPFP across 15 facilities in Kinshasa to promote access to and voluntary adoption of FP among postpartum clients. We are using lessons learned from our work enhancing PPFP services at the facility level to strengthen national systems.
At the beginning of the program, EngenderHealth supported the MOH with consultative framework meetings to coordinate PPFP activities and interventions throughout the country. As a result, ExpandFP II contributed to developing and updating national PPFP policy documents to help the MOH coordinate PPFP integration across stakeholders. Through ExpandFP II, we supported the training and supervision of providers thereby strengthening their capacity to deliver a wide range of PPFP methods and support client-centered care. EngenderHealth helped the MOH establish a comprehensive, continuous, and sustainable training system for PPFP interventions at all levels of the country’s health system to improve provider clinical knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We provided technical and financial support to the MOH to strengthen PPFP supervision and service delivery with an emphasis on mentoring, joint problem-solving, and two-way communication.
EngenderHealth assisted the MOH in reviewing progress and achievements of the National Family Planning Strategy (2016-2020) and laying the groundwork for the next five-year strategy. Further, between July 2019 and December 2020, of 8,115 clients who gave birth at program-supported sites, 7,033 received PPFP counseling and 1,565 adopted a PPFP method before discharge. The program also supported the MOH in revising and adapting the existing data collection forms to include PPFP information to improve monitoring of client choice. The new data collection forms are the first example of PPFP integration in the DRC.
