Our work focuses on changing this narrative through our focus areas:
Community Engagement
We empower our community by equipping them with knowledge, confidence and the social support needed to make informed reproductive healt decisions.
Health System Strengthening
Ipas Africa Alliance envisions strong, inclusive, resilient health systems that ensure and integrate coverage, access, and use of quality, person-centered sexual and reproductive health, and rights (SRHR) services into universal health coverage.
Policy & Advocacy
The Ipas Africa Alliance Policy and Advocacy Unit has the primary objective of ensuring strengthened laws and policies in support of reproductive justice at the national and regional level.
Research & Evidence Generation
Ipas Africa Alliance (AA) value the contributions of research towards finding solutions to sexual and reproductive health (SRHR) issues affecting women and girls.
Community Engagement
We aim to reinforce the connections between community engagement and policy advocacy, fostering robust support for a variety of movements that are not only informed but also mobilized for the advancement of expanded Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) access and rights. This involves empowering community stakeholders with the tools and knowledge necessary to effectively disseminate SRHR-specific information and resources. By doing so, we facilitate processes that ensure the sustained presence of SRHR knowledge within communities, including vital information on abortion self-care.
Additionally, we prioritize building the capacity of community stakeholders to incorporate sustainable, user-centered, gender-sensitive, and rights-based strategies into their efforts aimed at enhancing social support for SRHR. Through this approach, we strive to create a supportive environment that respects and upholds the rights of individuals in matters related to sexual and reproductive health.
Furthermore, we collaborate closely with a diverse range of community stakeholders, providing them with the necessary support to integrate strategies for social norm change concerning SRHR. By addressing entrenched societal norms and perceptions, we aim to create a more inclusive and supportive environment where individuals can access the SRH services and rights they need without facing stigma or discrimination.
Health Systems Strengthening
Ipas Africa Alliance envisions strong, inclusive, resilient health systems that ensure and integrate coverage, access, and use of quality, person-centered sexual and reproductive health, and rights (SRHR) services into universal health coverage.
- Leadership and governance
- Service delivery
- Financing
- Health Workforce
- Commodities
- Health Information Systems
At the national and county/district health departments, we focus on conducting Sustainable Abortion Ecosystem dialogues at both national and regional levels. We play a key role in developing, reviewing, and disseminating crucial policies and guidelines, such as Kenya’s national post-abortion care (PAC) standards and guidelines, and its costed implementation plan. Our efforts include the review of Kenya’s national Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) and Reproductive Health (RH) policies, as well as the national abortion care standards and guidelines in Kenya and Uganda (now withdrawn). Additionally, we disseminate Tanzania’s PAC policy, standards, and guidelines in two regions and in Zanzibar. To ensure government ownership, we provide regular support supervision for comprehensive abortion care (CAC) services.
Additionally, we support regular data monitoring and review meetings at both facility and county levels. These meetings provide a platform for healthcare providers and administrators to analyze data, identify trends, and address any issues related to service delivery. By fostering a culture of data use, we empower health facilities to make informed decisions that enhance the quality of care provided to patients. Our comprehensive approach ensures that health facilities are well-equipped to manage data effectively, ultimately contributing to improved health outcomes at the community and national levels.
Policy & Advocacy
The Ipas Africa Alliance Policy and Advocacy Unit has the primary objective of ensuring strengthened laws and policies in support of reproductive justice at the national and regional level. We seek to achieve this through the creation of linkages across policy, advocacy and pathways to care are effectively relied on to expand the enabling legal, policy, and political environment for SRHR.
Further, we engage and support regional human rights accountability mechanisms to ensure that they are functioning and actively relied on to promote reproductive health and rights access.
Positive public discourse and factual understanding of reproductive health as an issue concerning human dignity, bodily autonomy, and free choice is a key pillar to the success of the unit’s primary objective.
We implement the above strategic interventions by:
- Tracking, supporting and advocating for the progressive improvements of the legal and policy frameworks in Africa to decriminalize SRHR to align with human rights standards,
- Advocating with policymakers and other stakeholders to ensure adequate budget allocation, financing and funding commitments to meet SRHR needs and ensure sustainable access to care,
- Participating in human rights reporting and advocacy mechanisms (UN work, treaty monitoring bodies, regional bodies, etc.) through shadow letters, UN briefings, participating in advocacy coalitions and networks, global meetings, providing expert testimony, participating in national delegations, etc. to ensure women and girls’ rights to SRHR are addressed,
- Tracking, supporting, engaging and institutionalizing relationships with national and regional human rights accountability mechanisms and institutions and networks to ensure robust engagement and oversight by key stakeholders (including government monitoring and tracking of access; social participation, and human rights monitoring and design) to report on human rights violations and gaps in policies and laws regarding access to SRHR,
- Amplify the voices of women and girls to promote better understanding of their needs and rights for SRHR, as well as their perspectives on barriers to access,
- Resource mobilization and support for opposition monitoring and mitigation of key anti-choice efforts and strategy building across programming areas,
- Developing and disseminating information and tools, including response strategies, to mitigate impact of anti-rights and anti-SRHR actors, and
- Collecting, analyzing, and sharing reliable data and other evidence with policymakers and key stakeholders to inform and support their ability to identify solutions that improve SRHR access.
Research & Evidence Generation
Ipas Africa Alliance (AA) value the contributions of research towards finding solutions to sexual and reproductive health (SRHR) issues affecting women and girls. In the year 2023, AA carried out a research initiative which looked at how climate change contributes to limited access to the vital SRHR services amongst the population living within the Ardi and semi-arid (ASAL) land.
The research fills an evidence gap concerning the impact of climate change on SRHR in ASAL communities. Study findings highlight the rigors imposed on traditional pastoralist livelihoods by environmental degradation, resulting in conflict with neighboring ethnic groups over limited pastureland and dwindling livestock.
The resultant migration increases distances from health facilities, interrupting contraceptive use, increasing the incidence of unplanned pregnancies, and unsafe abortions.
Pregnant and postpartum women are vulnerable to miscarriage, unskilled delivery, and difficulty producing breastmilk during drought. The study findings concerning local adaptation strategies on change in climate and health system risks will inform SRHR-integrated climate action to bolster the resilience of ASAL communities and health systems.
In the same year, Ipas Africa Alliance published a peer-reviewed paper in BMC Women’s Health, entitled “Pathways to medical abortion self-use (MASU): results from a cross-sectional survey of women’s experiences in Kenya and Uganda.” This study added to the global body of knowledge on women’s experiences with Medical Abortion (MA). It highlighted the critical role played by community members as a valuable information resource for MA.