Policies & Guidelines

Supportive policies lay the groundwork for family planning service delivery. Up-to-date and evidence-based family planning guidelines help programs and providers offer quality services that are free from unnecessary requirements and medical barriers.

The World Health Organization has issued and periodically updates global technical guidelines that cover how to provide contraceptive methods and to whom. National family planning and reproductive health programs can use the WHO global recommendations about implants and other resources with international guidance, provided below, as a basis for developing, reviewing, or updating their own national family planning guidelines on implants. Also included in this section of the Implants Toolkit are examples of national family planning guidelines on implants that Ministries of Health and other stakeholders can use as a guide for developing their own national guidelines.

To go directly to one of the sections, click on one of the links below:

Policies

International Family Planning Guidance on Implants

National Family Planning Guidelines on Implants

Developing and Updating National Guidelines

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Policies

WHO Pre-Qualification of Sino-Implant (II) - Questions and Answers

2011 | FHI | 1 p

English

This document, from September 2011, gives the status of the WHO pre-qualification of Sino-implant (II) and provides answers to frequently asked questions.

2008-2011 | FHI

2011 Summary Report |

2010 Quality Assurance Evaluation |

2009 Quality Assurance Evaluation |

2008 Quality Assurance Evaluation

Sino-implant (II), a subdermal two-rod implant, has been available in China for more than 15 years and is also available in Indonesia and several African countries. Its effectiveness is comparable to other contraceptive implants but its lower cost has the potential to make it a prominent family planning method in resource-constrained countries. FHI has developed and implemented an independent quality assurance program for Sino-implant (II) to provide additional evidence of product quality.

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Task Shifting for a Strategic Skill Mix

2006 | The Capacity Project | 4 p

English |

French |

Spanish

Reorganizing skills among cadres is called task shifting (moving skills from one cadre to another) or task sharing (increasing the number of cadres able to perform a skill). Based on a review of the literature and country examples, the brief describes why task shifting is important and highlights some key steps in planning for, developing, and supporting cadres involved in task shifting. The guidance in this brief can be applied to task sharing for implants programs, which is needed to meet the high demand demonstrated by implants programs.

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International Family Planning Guidance on Implants

Model List of Essential Medicines (16th edition, updated)

2010 | World Health Organization [WHO]

English |

Spanish |

French

The Model List of Essential Medicines from the World Health Organization presents a list of minimum medicine needs for a basic health care system and essential medicines for priority diseases. The Model List covers contraceptive methods, including implants. The type of implants mentioned in the Model List is a two-rod levonorgestrel-releasing implant. (See p. 23 of the full-text document.) The WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines has been updated every two years since 1977.

2009 | World Health Organization [WHO], Department of Reproductive Health and Research | 125 p

English (Fourth Edition) |

Arabic (Third Edition) |

French (Third Edition) |

Portuguese (Africa, Third Edition) |

Portuguese (Brazil, Third Edition) |

Russian (Third Edition) |

Spanish (Third Edition)

2007 | World Health Organization Department of Reproductive Health and Research and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs | 22 p

English

French |

Spanish

The new handbook, Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers, offers clinic-based health care professionals in developing countries the latest guidance on providing contraceptive methods. Primary features of the handbook include:

2004 | World Health Organization [WHO], Department of Reproductive Health and Research

English |

2008 Update--English |

Arabic |

French |

2008 Update--French |

Romanian |

Russian |

2008 Update--Russian |

Spanish |

2008 Update--Spanish

This guide provides guidance on how to provide contraceptives, with the goals of maximizing effectiveness and managing side effects and other problems. The second edition contains 33 recommendations ranging from when to start a method, how to manage problems women experience using certain methods, how to provide emergency contraception, and what clinical exams to perform before a method can be initiated.

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National Family Planning Guidelines on Implants

Technical experts from EngenderHealth and Family Health International reviewed national family planning guidelines from 17 countries. The expert review committee selected the following national guidelines to provide toolkit users with good, if not model, examples from a range of countries. Any errors, omissions, or undesirable presentation of information in the national guidelines are noted below under the respective titles.

National Family Planning Guidelines for Service Providers (Kenya)

2010 | Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Division of Reproductive Health | 262 p

Produced by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation’s Division of Reproductive Health in collaboration with a number of organizations and institutions, this updated edition of the Kenya family planning guidelines incorporates the 2009 Medical Eligibility Criteria (MEC) from the World Health Organization (WHO). Technical experts from EngenderHealth and Family Health International who reviewed these and other country guidelines found the Kenya guidelines to be the best model among all reviewed guidelines.

2006 | Malawi Ministry of Health and Population | 10 p

English

Technical experts from EngenderHealth and Family Health International who reviewed these and other country guidelines found the Malawi national guidelines to be generally worthy, but somewhat limited in scope. While much of the key information is provided in the guidelines in the form of bullet points, such as effectiveness, benefits and side effects, and who can and cannot use, the guidelines do not provide much explanation about these points.

2006 | Philippine Department of Health | 220 p

Published by the Philippines Department of Health and The Social Acceptance Project – Family Planning (TSAP-FP), the Philippines family planning guidelines is based on the 2004 Medical Eligibility Criteria (MEC) from the World Health Organization (WHO), the most up-to-date MEC at the time of publishing these guidelines.

2005 | Ministere de la Santé, République du Mali

Technical experts from EngenderHealth and Family Health International who reviewed these and other country guidelines found the Mali national guidelines generally well organized and easy to read and understand. The main limitation with the guidelines is that they focus on Norplant implants, which are no longer available. Some information is provided about Jadelle in an appendix. Some strengths of the guidelines include:

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Developing and Updating National Guidelines

National Guidelines Update Process: Key Steps

2009 | JHPIEGO | 24 slides

English

These PowerPoint slides identify guideline components and lead the reader through the best practices for development, update, and dissemination of national guidelines.

2007 | World Health Organization [WHO] | 35 p

English |

French

This document provides general principles for a systematic approach to the adaptation and adoption of guidelines developed by WHO to improve sexual and reproductive health. Its purpose is to encourage the implementation of evidence-based interventions identified in various WHO sexual and reproductive health practice guides. The introduction of interventions depends on the circumstances, contextual issues and development stages of programmes.

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