When programming family planning interventions, why re-invent the wheel? It’s frustrating when efforts overlap and resources are wasted. Learning from the success and failures of others is critical to progress; however, it can be difficult with so many programs and no mechanism to track where and what High Impact Practices (HIPs) in family planning are being implemented worldwide. What if a program in Ghana is interested in expanding a community health worker intervention and wants some tips for implementation from other countries nearby? Where would program staff go to find that information?

Now, with the support of the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, Implementing Best Practices (IBP) Initiative, and others, USAID has developed an online interactive map showing who, what, when, where, and how HIPs are being implemented in the field. This map will allow users—like our colleagues in Ghana—to quickly see what type of programs are being implemented (or have been implemented) in their region. The map will facilitate South-to-South learning and exchanges.

As a first step, the map will include information on the following four HIPs:

• Providing family planning counseling and methods at the same time and location where women receive postabortion treatment.
• Offering a wide range of family planning methods through mobile clinical outreach.
• Offering family planning services during routine child immunization contacts.
• Supporting Community Health Workers (CHWs) to provide a wide range of family planning methods.

The map taps the wealth of experiential knowledge among implementing partners, and is dependent on data voluntarily contributed by users around the world. If you are implementing a program involving one of the four HIPs cited above, please consider taking our brief survey. Responding to the survey will add your program to the online map, and build a basis for stronger learning between family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide. The more programs that respond, the more useful the map will be. Please note that this first map will include information on the four HIPs in 27 priority countries; we are unable to collect data on all countries at this time.

More: Learn more about HIPs | Go to the survey page