Flexible Family Planning, Reproductive Health, and Gender-Based Violence Services for Transition Situations Project

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an area that hosts significant refugee and displaced populations, a woman receives family planning services.

Through the FLEX project, Pathfinder and IntraHealth International identifed flexible approaches for developing models of a minimum package of family planning and gender-based violence services to offer during an emergency situation or environmental instability affecting a region or a country.

Approaches included:

• Early planning or planning at various phases of crises
• Training a core cadre of trainers
• Establishing mobile outreach teams
• Developing/testing community-based distribution of Depo Provera
• Setting up 24-hour drop-in centers
• Addressing sexual and gender-based violence including post rape services
• Community advocacy, health promotion and community outreach.

The project collaborated closely with agencies working in the humanitarian aid field and those offering reproductive health services in general and family planning/gender-based violence services in particular. The two sites selected for the implementation of these models of service delivery were the Muyinga and Kayanza provinces in Burundi and Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These sites were chosen because they host essentially displaced, returnees and/or refugee populations affected by socio-political crisis.

The final project evaluation is available for download; it highlights and documents the unique approach and successes of the project.