Sharon Kellman Yett
(233) 30 274 1599
Niamey, Niger: The United States Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has launched Agir pour la Planification Familiale (AgirPF), a five-year regional family planning project to be implemented in five countries: Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, and Togo.
To respond to the high unmet need for family planning in West Africa and recognizing the region’s growing urbanization, AgirPF aims to increase access to and use of quality family planning services in urban areas using hospitals and health centers as well as mobile outreach and community-based services. More specifically, AgirPF will: 1) expand access to family planning counseling and a range of contraceptive methods; 2) promote healthy family planning behaviors; and 3) increase awareness of the benefits of family planning.
“We all know that population growth poses a significant challenge for the economic and social progress of Niger and of West Africa as a whole,” said U.S. Embassy Niamey Chargé d’Affaires Richard Bell. “The government of Niger established an ambitious goal: to double the proportion of Nigerien women who use modern contraception methods by 2015, and further, to achieve a modern contraception use rate of 50% by 2020. Through this project, the U.S. government will directly contribute to this goal.”
USAID designed AgirPF to support the member countries of the Ouagadougou Partnership for Repositioning Family Planning in Francophone West Africa, who pledged to reach an additional one million women and couples with family planning methods by 2015. AgirPF, implemented by EngenderHealth together with Futures Institute and EXP Agency, will build upon successful USAID-funded activities piloted in Togo which focused on community-based delivery of a package of services that included family planning and maternal and child health services, and in Burkina Faso, which focused on collaborating with community radio stations to raise awareness about family planning and training providers to improve quality of services. These activities will now be expanded in Niger.
