• Quality of Care
• Informed Youth
• National Communication Strategies
• Involving Men and Empowering Women
• National Capacity Building/Sustainability
• New Approaches to Family Planning

Quality of Care

We support quality family planning by working closely with government counterparts, private partners, and NGOs in the region to:

• Improve and market FP/RH services and products in various campaigns. For example, in Egypt, our projects include the Public Sector Gold Star Program, the Private Sector "Ask...Consult" Project, and the CSI NGO Project.



• Improve and provide training programs and client-provider support materials including videos, discussion guide, reference cards, and posters.



• Provide FP/RH sources of information (for example the translation of "The Essentials in Contraceptive Technology Wallchart" into Arabic)



• Enhance the use of FP/RH services. In Morocco, we produced an IEC kit for health workers that contained samples of all contraceptives available, method-specific brochures, and cue cards. In Egypt and Jordan, we support access to qulaity services through mass media campaigns that promote family planning logos and markers and direct people to delivery points marked by quality symbols.

Informed Youth

The communication strategies in Jordan and Egypt identify young couples under 25 as the primary audience because they are at peak fertility, starting families, forming attitudes and reproductive behaviors, and seeking advice about birth spacing and post-partum options.

Reaching unmarried adolescents with life-planning and healthy lifestyle issues is the second focus of Near East youth programs. They are the largest-ever generation of young people preparing to enter adulthood and our aim is to strengthen their positive attitudes towards life-planning issues such as women's self-efficacy, FP/RH, couple communication and pre-marital counseling.

National Communication Strategies

Our national communication strategies vary across countries:

In Jordan we advocate for:

• life planning messages,


• positive RH/FP among policymakers, religious leaders, and men, women, and youth


• increasing the successful practice of FP among young married couples

Because of the more established project in Egypt, our goal is twofold:

• generate demand for high quality public and private sector FP services, and


• increase the correct use of contraceptives through mass media and local outreach

In Morocco (another country with an established program in its 30th year), we emphasize long-term FP methods. And because of Morocco's high maternal mortality rate, we developed a multi-faceted strategy that would:

• raise awareness of maternal deaths among policy-makers, health providers, and the public, and


• improve and promote increased use of maternal health services.

Involving Men and Empowering Women

Our key areas include:

• Promoting women's empowerment and equal participation in decision-making within the family
• Strengthening men's support for RH/FP

In the video documentary project Arab Women Speak Out, women from five different countries encourage other Arab women to be initiators of social change. As a follow-up to our Master Trainer's workshop, we will provide technical assistance so that facilitators and field workers can participate in national training sessions.

In Jordan, we will build on the success of the Men's Participation Campaign in two governates.

The second phase of the campaign will focus on promoting men's support for increased use of FP methods through community meetings in three new governorates. The result will be community activities in governorates where 80% of the total population lives.

National Capacity Building/Sustainability

Our strategy to enhance national capacities toward sustainability is all-encompassing. We provide training in the use of the P-Process, which guides the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of programs. Training opportunities include the Arabic and English language Advances in Family Health Communication workshops held annually in Baltimore.

New Approaches to Family Planning

JHU/PCS introduced an Arabic-language Egypt version of the computerized Strategic Communication Planning and Evaluation (SCOPE) program, using the latest research data available. This software program was used by participants for the first time at the third Arabic Advances workshop in Marrakesh, Morocco, and at the 2000 Arabic Advances in Health Communication and Advocacy Workshop in Lebanon, Adma and Broumana. It is designed to enhance program managers' ability to develop Communication programs in a systematic manner, following the P-Process. In Jordan, JHU/PCS developed an English and Arabic version of the Population Reports Quiz, an interactive, user-friendly program targeted to policy-makers and program managers and designed to enhance their understanding of population/family planning issues and act as one of the tools to gain their support for the national family planning program. New approaches are not only technology specific, the selection of alternative channels for promotion are considered powerful innovations in the field of family planning and reproductive health.