WORLDWIDE: HEALTH POLICY PLUS

HP+ has a mandate across global, country and subnational levels to strengthen and advance health policy priorities in: family planning and reproductive health; HIV; and maternal, newborn and child health. It aims to improve the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies and delivery systems through policy development and implementation. The project emphasizes voluntary, rights-based health programs and strengthening in-country partners’ capacity to navigate complex environments for effective policy design, implementation and financing aligned to their priorities.

 

What are we doing?

The project’s primary objectives are to:

• Advance equitable health policies.
• Maximize financial resources.
• Promote an enabling policy environment.
• Strengthen county leadership and ownership.

Plan provides the technical leadership to meet advocacy- and global leadership-related results, supporting a number of activities across geographies. Some of these activities include:

• Child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) prevention in Malawi: Plan worked through HP+ on an activity to ensure Malawi’s age of marriage law is embraced by local leaders and communities. This activity fosters change of social norms by activating and training traditional and faith-based community leaders in the districts of Machinga and Chikwawa to champion change and mentor their peers to do so as well. The project is also working at the district and national levels to advance policy discussions and bring media attention to early marriage to spark nationwide dialogue.

 

• Youth-led policy advocacy in Malawi: Plan led a year-long intergenerational mentorship activity in Malawi to help 24 young leaders ages 18-24 become youth champions. This used a mentorship model in the areas of sexual and reproductive health governance, policy and advocacy. Well-known sexual and reproductive health champions acted as professional mentors for young leaders to educate and guide them to become policy champions. Young leaders and their mentors worked together for a nine-month period to advocate for effective sexual and reproductive health programs and services, and to hold policymakers accountable to their responsibilities and commitments to young people.

 

• COVID-19 response in El Salvador: During the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Plan was part of HP+’s COVID-19 response efforts in El Salvador. Plan provided support to the Government of El Salvador to improve laboratory capacity to scale up diagnostic and antibody testing. Plan helped to standardize systems and processes to meet the growing demand for testing, while ensuring quality control and efficient use of resources. Plan also helped develop and deliver a series of trainings for lab staff on accurate specimen collection and processing before and during transport to laboratories for processing.

 

This project is funded by USAID and led by Palladium. Additional partners include Avenir Health, Population Reference Bureau, RTI International, the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and ThinkWell. HP+ began in 2015 and will end in 2022.

The facts below relate to work done in Machinga and Chikwawa districts in Malawi to prevent CEFM.