In response to the need for family planning, the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health’s Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) developed a strategy for increasing the uptake of LA/PMs in 2008. The strategy’s overarching goals were to establish a sustainable family planning program offering a balanced mix of short-acting, long-acting, and permanent methods. In recognition of the importance of holistic programming, the strategy is centered on five themes: capacity building, demand creation, contraceptive security, public-private partnerships, and sustainability (DRH, 2008). The DRH sought to reinvigorate the program by building additional capacity among providers, as well as its own technical capacity at the central level to support provinces in providing a broad method mix. The DRH called upon the RESPOND Project (which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]) to support these capacity-building efforts, beginning in the Nyanza and Rift Valley provinces, where unmet need for family planning is highest. Almost one-third of women in Nyanza (32%) and Rift Valley (31%) have an unmet need to space or limit births (KNBS & ICF Macro, 2010). With technical assistance from RESPOND, the DRH piloted an innovative approach designed to quickly and sustainably increase the number of providers prepared to offer LA/PMs, while fostering ownership and sustainability by leveraging local resources for training.
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