Targeted Policy Development and Advocacy

Futures Group’s expertise in policy and advocacy has helped increase political and financial support for client-focused MCH policies and programs. As a partner on the Access to Clinical and Community Maternal, Neonatal and Women’s Health Services (ACCESS) Project, Futures Group helps stimulate policy dialogue and strategic planning and supplies technical leadership in advocacy and community mobilization. In Afghanistan, we conducted a review of the maternal and newborn health strategy and policy and are supporting the new strategy’s development. In Tanzania, Futures Group has supported the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA) in advocating for changes and updates in policies, protocols, and guidelines; increased funding for maternal health; and building political will for reducing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. A key partner on various projects, Futures Group has supported WRA’s efforts around the globe.

In Guatemala, Futures Group provided data to a congresswoman on the country’s reproductive health situation and related policy environment as an evidence base, and she collaborated with political groups to secure their approval of a safe motherhood resolution. The resolution demands that the MOH promote effective and immediate actions to reduce maternal mortality.

In Mali, Futures Group works with religious leaders and uses a “Grandmother Strategy” to encourage pregnant women to get their prenatal visits and for couples to discuss pregnancy openly, plan together for delivery, and use bednets. In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Futures Group used small grants and capacity building to help NGOs advance critical MCH work. In Ukraine, we developed a referral structure, health personnel job descriptions, and components of outpatient maternal health care to help remove operational policy barriers to providing quality care. Futures Group also worked to strengthen the policy and institutional framework for safe motherhood, identified relevant priorities and strategies, and developed national leadership capacity to guide and monitor safe motherhood efforts in six Asian countries.