AUGUST 2015
CASE STUDY
TWO MORE KENYAN COUNTIES
DEVELOP COSTED FAMILY
PLANNING STRATEGIES
THE OPPORTUNITY FUND
Busia and Homa Bay counties in western Kenya have
developed and approved costed family planning
strategies. These new strategies will guide program
and budget priorities for family planning over the next
several years for the respective county governments
and their development partners. They form the basis for
preparation and implementation of annual work plans
for family planning and reproductive health priorities in
the county, including adolescents and youth.
The Context
In early 2014, against the backdrop of a newlydevolved health sector in Kenya, the Opportunity
Fund proactively sought to replicate the advocacy
approach of AFP’s lead partner in Kenya, JHPIEGO.
The Fund supported two established, indigenous civil
society organizations (CSOs) to advocate for family
planning in additional counties—KMET in Homa Bay
and the Centre for the Study of Adolescence (CSA)
in Busia. These counties were selected in large
part because KMET and CSA
understood the programmatic
and political terrain well: they
knew first-hand the unsatisfied
demand for family planning,
as well as the related human
resources and contraceptive
supply issues at play in the
counties. Both enjoyed strong,
working relationships with many
of the decision makers who would be central to
shepherding and approving a family planning strategy
as part of the counties’ broader health agenda.
Advocacy Objectives
CSA and KMET had nearly identical advocacy
objectives for their respective counties: 1) develop
a multi-year family planning strategy; and 2) create
a budget line for family planning services and
commodities. Each employed similar tactics for making
“The reproductive health strategy gives the county health team
the mandate to continue working in this area and makes funding
allocations easier. Costing enables partners to easily pick activities
they wish to support and for the county to adequately estimate its
budget for the year.”
– Busia County Health Director, Department of Health & Sanitation
TWO MORE KENYAN COUNTIES DEVELOP COSTED FAMILY PLANNING STRATEGIES
the case and galvanizing policymakers’ support
for dedicated family planning strategies. And both
borrowed from the advocacy approach underway in
neighboring counties by JHPIEGO and partners.
In Busia, one of CSA’s advocacy objectives shifted
early in response to feedback from the county health
team. Instead of a family planning strategy, county
officials requested CSA’s assistance in developing
a more comprehensive—and costed—reproductive
health strategy, which they had identified as a major
gap in the county’s overall health strategy. While this
broader strategy was not the intended outcome of the
Opportunity Fund award, CSA agreed it made sense
and adjusted its advocacy workplan accordingly.
The result is a three-year, costed reproductive
health strategy with family planning at its core. (The
strategy’s 2015-2017 timeframe corresponds with
Busia’s Integrated Development Plan.)
In Homa Bay, KMET carried out their family planning
assessment with the Ministry of Health in five of the
neediest sub-counties. While this approach was more
time-intensive, it strengthened the county health
team’s ownership of and commitment to developing a
five-year, costed family planning strategic plan (20152019). This process also afforded KMET a collaborative
space in which to assist county health officials take
action on relevant national policies (such as the
task-sharing guidelines and the Treasury circular
No.10/2014 on budgeting) to achieve Homa Bay’s
family planning and broader health objectives.
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What Advocacy Steps Led To
The Quick Wins?
n
Identifying a SMART objective,
influential and technical allies, and key
decisionmaker(s)
n
Gathering the evidence to support the
advocacy ask (e.g., a situational analysis)
n
Mapping all stakeholders and creating an
inclusive, ad-hoc technical working group
n
Refining the objective and strategy in
response to feedback
n
Facilitating government leadership and
ownership of the process (e.g., formal
MOU, joint research, shared workplan)
n
Supporting validation of costed family
planning strategy by multiple actors
n
Meetings with parliamentary leadership,
health minister and Governor’s office to
build support for family planning strategy
and advocate for needed resources
Learning From and Strategizing
with the Jhpiego Kenya Team
As KMET and CSA advocacy got underway in their
respective counties, the Opportunity Fund decided to
make the most of a good thing: three organizations
pursuing similar advocacy in slightly different
settings. Most Opportunity Fund investments are in
TWO MORE KENYAN COUNTIES DEVELOP COSTED FAMILY PLANNING STRATEGIES
“We are appreciative of the technical support we received from KMET.
This strategy will guide the countywide provision of family planning
services, especially to those in greatest need and most vulnerable. Our
five-year plan will also fast-track efforts to reduce maternal and infant
morbidity and mortality. It will generally improve the standard of living
for Homa Bay residents.” — Minister for Health, Homa Bay
one organization per country; there are only a few
instances where the Fund supports more than one
CSO per country, or supports a CSO working in close
coordination with the local AFP lead partner.
PAI connected KMET and CSA advocacy staff with
AFP/Jhpiego colleagues and shared the Homa Bay
and Busia county objectives. Soon after, PAI began
facilitating group calls to share progress updates.
These informal check-ins served as mini coalition
meetings to discuss strategy and to troubleshoot
the hiccups. Mid-way through the awards, Jhpiego
offered KMET and CSA a more in-depth, in-person
orientation to the AFP SMART approach. It provided
a break-through moment for KMET staff, who realized
that some of their targeted policymakers were not
the decisionmakers they needed to reach for their
objective to succeed. The session also strengthened
the advocacy camaraderie and collaboration among
local colleagues, all of whom are operating at both the
national and sub-national levels in Kenya.
Prior to the end of KMET and CSA’s awards, PAI and
Jhpiego began discussing whether and how to apply
the next phase of the AFP approach – documenting
and tracking the expected quick wins. Neither had
facilitated a group session on AFP’s Results Cascade
and Decision Tree, and there was no sample agenda
to work from. Jhpiego developed the program and the
Opportunity Fund convened the two-day session in
late April 2015 for KMET, CSA, and Jhpiego staff. The
group acknowledged that the session was important
because in advocacy, monitoring and evaluation
(M&E) is usually the weak link.
The KMET and CSA teams worked through the
AFP tools, agreeing that these could be adapted
for capturing and monitoring results in their other
projects. Based on this experience, the Opportunity
Fund and Jhpiego adjusted slightly the program
to replicate it for Zambian recipients of the Fund,
which also tapped the expertise of CCP Tanzania. The
outcomes from the Kenya and Zambia advocacy M&E
sessions are documented in this summary report.
Next Steps
With quick wins achieved, CSA’s and KMET’s attention
immediately shifted to working with stakeholders
in Busia and Homa Bay to begin operationalizing
their strategies. This marked a turning point for the
Opportunity Fund, since its core mission is help CSOs
seize emerging, high impact advocacy opportunities.
Yet following through and sustaining the policy and
funding wins is as important as achieving them.
With additional, short-term support from the Fund,
KMET and CSA are pursuing new SMART advocacy
objectives in the two counties through the end of 2015:
n
Each is focused on securing county budget
allocations for family planning—in the 2015/16
supplementary budget process, as well as laying
the groundwork for the 2016/17 budget cycle—
using the counties’ approved costed strategies.
n
CSA and KMET are back-stopping the county
health management teams to formalize the family
planning technical working groups (FPTWGs)
charged with shepherding the strategies’
implementation. This may entail orienting FPTWG
members to the AFP SMART approach as well,
with technical assistance from Jhpiego.
n
Convening meetings of county government
officials and development partners who are
actively working in Busia and Homa Bay to
identify additional, external resources that can go
toward strategy implementation.
Joint strategizing with Jhpiego will continue
throughout. In turn, these counties—and working with
KMET and CSA—may become part of AFP’s workplan
in Kenya for the remaining years of the initiative.
pai.org
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TWO MORE KENYAN COUNTIES DEVELOP COSTED FAMILY PLANNING STRATEGIES
CONTACT: Albert Obbuyi, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Adolescence, [email protected]
Sam Owoko, Programs Manager, KMET, [email protected]
This case study is intended to complements one prepared by Jhpiego Kenya (January 2015) regarding the first four counties—Kakamega, Kitui, Siaya, and TharakaNithi—
to develop costed family planning strategies in 2014. Please refer to the Jhpiego case study for more information about Kenya’s decentralized system and the rationale
for engaging county policymakers
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