How the WISH programme supported national efforts to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights in West and Central Africa
MSI is proud to publish a report on how our WISH consortium supported national actors to create a more enabling environment for the respect, protection and fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights in West and Central Africa.
Our Sustainable Pathways to Reproductive Choice report provides an overview of the ‘enabling environment’ achievements of MSI and our consortium partners under the UK Aid funded Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Lot 1 Programme. In just three years, the programme has made a significant impact – contributing to measurable improvements in national laws and policies in eight countries, improvements to domestic financing in five countries and greater accountability in all 12 countries where WISH Lot 1 operated.
Many of these achievements build on years of preceding advocacy efforts and benefitted from the financial injection and technical support the WISH programme brought.
Achievements highlighted in this report include the validation of a new law in Jigawa State in Nigeria that will both punish perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence and provide survivors with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services; improvements in sexual and reproductive healthcare for adolescents and people with disabilities in Niger; the creation of budget lines for family planning commodities in Kinshasa, DRC and Jigawa State in Nigeria; funding increases in Burkina Faso and Chad; the inclusion of family planning in national health insurance schemes in Ghana and Jigawa State; and the strengthening of civil society platforms that hold decision makers to account for their commitments, ensuring that the needs of marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities, are recognised, heard and responded to in laws, policies and plans.
Read more about how our WISH consortium supported national efforts to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights in West and Central Africa in our report: Sustainable pathways to reproductive choice.
The report is also available in French – Voies durables vers le choix reproductif: comment le programme WISH a soutenu les efforts nationaux pour améliorer la santé et les droits sexuels et reproductifs Afrique Occidentale et Orientale.
