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Family Planning Advocacy Resource Hub

The Family Planning Advocacy Resource Hub was created by Population Reference Bureau through the Empowering Evidence-Driven Advocacy project. Through the Resource Hub, PRB assists family planning advocacy partners in Africa and Asia in meeting their needs for tailored, effective communications products in a timely manner. Each of our products is customized for the user, the local advocacy initiative, and the targeted audiences.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Challenge

As advocacy organizations engage with a range of decisionmakers to achieve their family planning policy goals, they need diversified communication messages and tools grounded in local evidence to address their different audiences’ priorities.

Analysis and synthesis of data and research are at the core of PRB’s technical work on family planning and reproductive health issues. The Family Planning Advocacy Resource Hub products reflect our deep experience inspiring policymakers to strengthen their commitments to family planning and related issues.

Through the Family Planning Advocacy Resource Hub, we deliver evidence-based content in compelling formats that make data and information accessible to expert and generalist audiences alike. The Family Planning Advocacy Resource Hub was created under PRB’s Empowering Evidence-Driven Advocacy project.

Evidence-Based Communication Products Tailored to Your Needs

PRB works together with family planning advocacy partners in Africa and Asia to create customized, impactful communications materials that propel their advocacy efforts. We customize materials based on partners’ advocacy needs, goals, and existing capacity for end results that help to achieve quick wins. To date, PRB has developed a number of innovative products, including videos, policy briefs, multimedia presentations, a comic book, pocket-sized infographics, and factsheets to support national and subnational advocacy.

Working with PRB has given us immense clarity on the three main points of developing an advocacy collateral—the audience, why, and how.

Dr. Sanchika Gupta, Former Program Officer, Jhpiego India

Impact

The materials created under the Advocacy Resource Hub have contributed to the use of evidence in family planning policies and decisionmaking in multiple partner countries.

  • DSW Kenya advocates and others convinced Nyandarua County’s health department to set aside funds in their annual workplan for family planning sensitization and staff training on youth-friendly services.
  • Jhpiego India‘s advocacy efforts helped convince policymakers in Jharkhand State to develop an adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health strategy document.
  • The Forum for Family Planning and Development in the Philippines used materials to clarify misconceptions about family planning methods among elected officials, who used the information they learned about specific family planning methods to draft ordinances in support of reproductive health.
  • The Association for Reproductive and Family Health‘s sub-national advocacy efforts in Nigeria led to the Kwara State Director of Public Health committing to include DMPA-SC in the family planning budget and making sure this method is always available at public facilities.
  • Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development Uganda received a signed commitment from the minister of health to increase the national budget for family planning commodities.
  • Femmes Santé et Développement‘s advocacy in Cameroon led the Ministry of Health to evaluate the implementation of Adolescent Reproductive Health Units and begin developing a strategy for strengthening them.
  • Faith to Action Network convinced the East African Legislative Assembly parliamentarians to retable the East African Community Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Bill for discussion and approval.
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Call for Applications From Youth Advocates

The application process has closed. Due to the large volume of applications, we will be able to notify only those individuals who are invited to attend. Notifications will be sent the week of Nov. 11, 2019.

Learn more about our work:

 

Who: Youth advocates ages 18 to 30 based in eastern, southern, and western Africa

Location: Lilongwe, Malawi

Please note that participants should plan to stay between the afternoons of December 2 and December 6, 2019.

What: GOAL Malawi and PRB will host a workshop to introduce active young advocates to the topic of population, environment, and development (PED), and teach them about evidence-based policy communication. Participants will learn how to define policy goals, identify target audiences, and craft communication objectives.

Outcomes: By the end of the workshop, participants will understand how issues such as family planning/reproductive health, natural resource management, conservation, and community development are interlinked. They will be able to translate data and evidence into clear messages about the role PED investments and policies can play in community and natural development. Participants will also leave the workshop with a policy communication activity that they develop, related to PED in their own countries and communities.

Participants will receive follow-up technical support to implement their activity.

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Call for Applications

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Media Center

PRB staff are experts in global health, population data and trends, and U.S. Census data. We also provide training in issues-based journalism and policy communication.

To learn more about our experts, please visit Leadership and Staff.

MEDIA MENTIONS

Is the Poverty Line, Created Five Decades Ago, an Effective Measure of Need? Experts Say No.

USA Today | Dec. 9, 2022
Beth Jarosz discusses the history and limitations of the current federal poverty line and offers recommendations.

As Biden Turns 80, Americans Ask ‘What’s Too Old?’

Reuters | Nov. 11, 2022
The article cites PRB data on aging trends in the United States.

Russia’s ‘Catastrophic’ Missing Men Problem

The Week | Nov. 5, 2022
The article highlights a blog by PRB board member Jennifer D. Sciubba about the link between demographic changes in a country and its approach to foreign policy.

Lawmakers Push to End Maternal Health Crisis

The Hill | Nov. 4, 2022
The article cites PRB reporting on the disparity in mortality rates between Black women and white women.

The Math Behind the Poverty Line: Researcher Says Calculations Don’t Account for High Housing Costs

Here & Now, WBUR | Nov. 1, 2022
Beth Jarosz discusses how the federal poverty line was set, why it’s outdated, and what changes might help.

Delaware (barely) surpasses 1 million residents − and many of them are older adults

Delaware Online | Nov. 1, 2022
The article cites a 2020 PRB article on the changes in the size of families in the United States.

‘Full-Time Work Doesn’t Pay’: Why Are So Many Working American Families Living Day to Day?

USA Today | Sept. 6, 2022
The article cites a PRB explainer on how poverty is measured in the United States.

I Work An Extra Job Because Childcare Costs More than My Salary. It’s Either That or Give Up My Career.

Market Insider | Aug. 29, 2022
The article cites KidsData’s findings on the cost of childcare in San Francisco.

Involve Stakeholders in Implementing Reproductive Health Policy

The Standard | Aug. 8, 2022
The article cites data on contraceptive use among adolescent girl from PRB’s 2021 World Population Data Sheet.

A 50 year shift to Virginia’s suburbs likely to move to the exurbs next

Virginia Public Media | July 12, 2022
Mark Mather discussed population changes in Virginia over the coming 50 years.

US Birth Rates Rose Slightly in 2021 After a Steep Drop in the First Year of the Pandemic, CDC Data Shows

CNN | May 24, 2022
Beth Jarosz discussed new data showing a slight increase in U.S. birth rates in 2021.

Featured Experts

Linda A. Jacobsen

Senior Fellow

Beth Jarosz

Program Director

Toshiko Kaneda

Technical Director, Demographic Research

Mark Mather

Associate Vice President, U.S. Programs

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Management of Complex Technical Programs

At PRB, we have the expertise, infrastructure, and global networks to take on some of the world’s most complex population and health challenges on behalf of our funders and partners.

Many of our partnerships span decades, built on good faith relationships established by our direct experiences with individuals and organizations across the globe at the intersection of the environment, health, family planning, and population.

We work with a wide range of partners in sectors including government, nonprofit, research, business, and philanthropy. Our approach focuses on evidence, audience, and context.

For more than 30 years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has relied on PRB to build the capacity of organizations around the world to accurately and effectively convey messages to decisionmakers that propel changes in areas such as gender, family planning, and reproductive health. Our capacity-building approach supports partners’ leadership in sustainable development. We work with longstanding partners to provide resources and limited, highly specific technical assistance. For those facing institutional challenges, we provide a full suite of support, including mentorship from peer institutions, technical training, and collaborative creation of communications materials.

Researchers and decisionmakers have relied on PRB’s expertise to oversee multiple programs for the U.S. Census Bureau since 2013. In partnership with the Census Bureau, PRB created and manages communities to support researchers, data users, and policymakers working with American Community Survey (ACS) data; organizes annual ACS Data Users conferences; and plays a key role in the creation of Census Bureau data products.

PRB’s manages multiple complex technical programs for several partners and clients around the world each year.

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Population and the Environment

For 20 years, PRB has been connecting human health and planetary health to show how population dynamics, including family planning, and environmental change interact and affect human and planetary well-being.

Humans and the environment are inextricably linked. Population size and age, fertility, mobility, settlement patterns, and resource availability and consumption all influence the impact we have on the environment.

Solving the complex challenges facing the world today demands a better understanding of how population growth and change impact the environment, how environmental change impacts human health and well-being, and what can be done to address these issues. PRB’s Population and the Environment activities aim to:

  • Increase awareness among decisionmakers, key stakeholders, and advocates about the linkages between population dynamics, human health, and environmental issues, including climate change.
  • Build leadership and capacity to advance evidence-based policy and programming solutions that recognize the links between population dynamics and the environment, including Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) multisectoral development approaches.
  • Contribute to and amplify evidence on the role of family planning and reproductive health in advancing key development outcomes outside of the health sector, in areas such as women’s empowerment, climate change resilience, food security, nutrition, and agriculture.
  • Develop and support international, regional, and country-level networks and communities of practice for information sharing and collaboration on population and environment linkages.

How are population dynamics and the environment linked?

How do family planning and reproductive health contribute to climate change adaptation and resilience?

  • PRB has built the evidence base linking family planning and reproductive health to increased resilience to shocks, including climate-related disturbances. This analysis of results from a long-running PHE project demonstrated the definitive impact of family planning in multisectoral approaches in connection with increased climate resilience.
  • Family planning and reproductive health have been identified as among the primary climate change solutions. PRB has compiled a comprehensive report, a brief (in English and French), and a video to outline the evidence and support family planning and reproductive health advocates in accessing climate adaptation financing for multisectoral programming.
  • Family planning’s contribution to resilience is mapped in this interactive feature, indicating family planning’s contributions to improved educational, economic, and other outcomes.

What is the Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) approach, how does it work, and where is it implemented?

Where can I go to find resources for learning more about or implementing PHE approaches?