Population Council Research that makes a difference

In September 2010 the world community recommitted itself to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UN Secretary General also launched his Global Strategy for Women and Children's Health to advance progress on attaining MDG4 (reduce child mortality) and MDG5 (improve women's health). MDG5 targets reduction of maternal mortality and achievement of universal access to reproductive health (RH).

The facts requiring energetic policy and program efforts are clear:

• Progress in maternal mortality decline is too slow to attain the MDG target of a 75 percent reduction from 1990 levels;
• A substantial proportion of pregnancies are unintended or unplanned; in several developing countries unmet need for family planning exceeds contraceptive prevalence;
• Recourse to abortion remains high, and unsafe abortion has been responsible for approximately 10 percent of maternal mortality; even where permitted by law, access to safe medical abortion remains restricted; and
• Despite improvement in infant and child mortality rates, closely spaced births and first births to very young women raise mortality risks.
  
  

STEP UP

The goal of the STEP UP Research Program Consortium is to improve the health of the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women, in the developing world. The consortium supports an evidence-based approach to scaling up access to high-quality family planning and safe abortion services (where available within the context of national laws).

STEP UP will generate knowledge to:

• Strengthen and expand the reach of existing RH programs so that they function more effectively and efficiently, address women's and men's RH rights, and foster increased political commitment to reproductive, maternal, and child health; and
• Develop and evaluate innovative service-delivery and financing models to increase the range of options available to policymakers and program managers, and to address the needs of diverse subpopulations.
  
  

A wide range of research designs and analysis methods will be used to produce evidence that is scientifically valid, ethically sound, and directly relevant to policy and programmatic decisionmaking. Wherever appropriate, the consortium will engage the ultimate beneficiaries, that is, women with unmet need for RH services, and particularly the poorest and most vulnerable.

To ensure uptake of the evidence by decisionmakers, STEP UP will collaborate closely with key stakeholders from the start of all research activities to ensure that the knowledge generated responds to their needs and can be used to improve program design, implementation, and evaluation. The consortium also will build capacity among partner researchers and research institutions in developing countries, as well as provide support to policymakers and program managers to help them better appreciate and utilize research-based evidence for decisionmaking.

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More information

• Fact sheet: "Scaling up access to quality family planning and safe abortion services" (PDF; PDF en français)
• Offsite link: STEP UP website