An important initiative
- SRHR are fundamental to living full healthy lives in ways that enable people to contribute to prosperous, equitable and sustainable societies.
- The international community has committed to improving SRHR through Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5.
- In Africa, innovative approaches, powerful national and international policies and legal instruments exist to address neglected areas of SRHR. However, progress has been slowed down by several challenges, including the impact of emerging and existing infectious diseases and the effects of climate change on already weak health systems.
- Long-term consequences of inaction could include increased risks of poor maternal and newborn outcomes, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and food insecurity, as well as reduced capacity of the health system to respond to shocks.
- There is a strong and growing need for governments and civil society organizations across sub-Saharan Africa to work together to build more responsive, resilient and integrated responses to address these intersecting challenges and improve outcomes related to critical areas of SRHR.
About the partnership
ANeSA is a seven-year CAD29.9-million initiative funded by IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Global Affairs Canada. Its primary objective is to support greater realization of critical SRHR by underserved populations in Africa. It will generate and promote the use of high-quality evidence on sustainable, scalable interventions to transform service design and delivery, strengthen the development and implementation of policies and legal instruments, and build equitable and sustainable health systems to address the challenges facing underserved and marginalized populations.
Innovative and gender transformative solutions to address neglected areas of SRHR
ANeSA’s integration of implementation research and gender-transformative approaches lays the foundation for sustainable and systems-level changes. The initiative focuses on five priority areas where evidence can contribute to meaningful change:
Improving access to family planning and contraceptive services for those who want to delay or prevent pregnancy. Contraception that is both appropriate and accessible not only reduces risks related to sexually transmitted infections and unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, but also contributes to expanded education opportunities and choice for women and girls as well as expanded economic development.
Expanding access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care (APAC) is an essential component of SRHR services. Comprehensive APAC services include accessible and accurate health information, abortion management and post-abortion care, and discussion about and provision of contraceptive care, all combined with legislative protection for all those seeking and providing abortion-related care. Alongside the scaling-up of contraceptive services, expanding access to safe and legal APAC services remains necessary.
Upholding SRHR rights and ensuring access to services for adolescents is critical to meeting global health, economic and sustainability goals. Global, systematic reviews have shown that successful comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs empower children and young people and improve health, economic and development outcomes. There are many lessons to be drawn from successful CSE programs implemented across sub-Saharan Africa. However, centering the voice and needs of adolescents and their caregivers, including older caregivers, often women, remains an important area for improvement.
Preventing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and improving services for people experiencing SGBV requires integrated, multi-sectoral approaches over the life course that address root causes, while providing accessible, appropriate care to people experiencing SGBV. Policy and legislative responses to SGBV, such as inclusive political participation and gender-responsive programming and service delivery, are also important mechanisms to address underlying causes of SGBV.
Strengthening advocacy for priority areas of SRHR requires comprehensive approaches, including advocating for the inclusion of SRHR in both the response to and prevention of climate and humanitarian crises; highlighting the intersections between SRHR, SGBV and other harmful social norms and practices; and ensuring service availability and delivery during social and political unrest.
Mobilizing local and regional capacity to address SRHR inequities
ANeSA is designed with two complementary mechanisms that will work together to achieve the overall objectives of the initiative:
- Health Policy and Research Organizations (HPROs): HPROs are independent, nonpartisan institutions that will facilitate networking and learning, capacity strengthening, nurturing of a community of practice, knowledge mobilization and exchange across the full spectrum of knowledge users, including underserved women and adolescent as well as decision-makers. One HPRO, the African Health Economics and Policy Association, is based in Ghana and will lead relevant activities for Implementation Research Teams (IRTs) in West and Central Africa. The other HPRO, the African Population and Health Research Center, is based in Kenya and will lead relevant activities for IRTs in East and Southern Africa. The two HPROs will work collaboratively and support learning and exchange across the regions.
- Implementation Research Teams: IRTs are the research teams that will develop and implement the interventions in ANeSA’s areas of focus. Each IRT is led by a principal investigator (PI) who is a sub-Saharan African researcher based in sub-Saharan Africa, working in collaboration with a co-PI senior member of a locally based civil society organization, a co-PI independent researcher based in a Canadian institution, and a co-PI decision-maker at the relevant local, district or national level. Over the lifetime of the initiative, ANeSA is expected to support up to 16 IRTs.
Objectives
The initiative’s overall aim is to support greater realization of neglected SRHR by underserved populations in sub-Saharan Africa.
ANeSA’s specific objectives are to:
- increase capacity to collaboratively generate evidence on the implementation of gender-transformative SRHR interventions
- increase availability and mobilization of evidence on the implementation of gender-transformative SRHR interventions
- increase demand by decision-makers for evidence on gender-transformative SRHR interventions
- strengthen the use of evidence to advocate for promotion of SRHR, especially among underserved populations, including women and girls, and organizations that serve them
- strengthen the use of evidence to hold communities, governments and other key stakeholders accountable for promotion of SRHR, especially among underserved populations, including women and girls, and organizations that serve them
For more information, please contact us at SRHR-SDSR@idrc.ca.
Partners
