Assessment of the 2017 National Campaign for the Promotion of Family Planning in Mali

Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation

Year: 2018

Abstract:

The Republic of Mali has one of the world’s lowest modern contraceptive prevalence rates (9.9%). This low rate contributes not only to high fertility and rapid population growth, but also to high rates of infant and maternal mortality. The government of Mali has made strides to improve these conditions by repositioning family planning (FP) as an essential public health and development intervention. Mali is also actively participating in global FP initiatives, such as the Ouagadougou Partnership and FP2020. Mali’s National Strategic Plan for 2014–2018 identifies four priority areas—demand, supply, enabling environment, and the reliability of the monitoring and coordination system—to reach the goal of increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate to 15 percent by 2018 (Ministère de la Santé et de l’Hygiène Publique, 2014).

As part of the National Strategic Plan, the Malian government organizes an annual FP campaign. In 2017, MEASURE Evaluation was hired by USAID/Mali to conduct an evaluation of the 2016 national campaign. The objective of the evaluation was to assess how well the campaign’s activities were implemented and to highlight required adjustments that should be made to improve future FP campaigns and interventions. The assessment focused on the five target intervention districts of Diéma, Bougouni, San, Koro, and Nara. The findings were presented to local stakeholders in a written report and at a dissemination workshop. The final version of the evaluation report on the 2016 national campaign to promote FP identified many strengths and weaknesses in the campaign.

In 2017, Mali launched its thirteenth national FP campaign on August 24, 2017, with a theme of “A responsible and engaged youth committed to FP in Mali, a way to reach the demographic dividend.” Due to a variety of factors, the campaign was postponed from its typical April launch to an August launch and was implemented over a period of approximately nine weeks, ending on October 22, 2017 (extended from the initial end date of September 23). Importantly, one reason for the delay was to consider some of the findings from the 2016 evaluation; namely, to strengthen contraceptive supply and logistics management in order to avoid stockouts and to add indicators to the health information system in order to monitor the campaign activities. This assessment of the 2017 campaign activities and outcomes aims to provide the opportunity to determine whether improvements were made, to assess whether the campaign achieved its intended outcomes, and to formulate other recommendations.

This publication is also available in the following language:
French