Project profile — Advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights

This project aims to enhance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa and other priority countries. Project activities include: (1) expanding sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services to reach the “marginalized last mile”. This includes communities in hard-to-reach settings; adolescent girls aged 15-19; and women living in extreme poverty and those without adequate access to public SRH services; (2) developing, testing and adopting age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education approaches in targeted countries; (3) engaging men and boys to address harmful social and gender norms and to raise other’s awareness regarding SRHR and gender equality; and (4) creating and strengthening partnerships with local women’s rights and other groups representing marginalized identities to advance gender equality and SRHR.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) enhanced sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality for women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa and other priority countries and contexts; (2) improved provision of quality, equitable, inclusive and sustainable sexual and reproductive health services in remote and underserved communities; (3) improved gender equality within social and community networks; and (4) improved enabling environment for SRHR and gender equality at the institutional level and beyond. During the first 2 years of the project, selected Tanzania and Senegal as priority countries.

Results achieved as of March 2025 include: (1) Marie Stopes International Reproductive Choices (MSI) Tanzania helped 135,668 clients benefit from family planning and safe abortion services; (2) MSI Senegal supported over 6,000 individuals with sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information and 10,425 clients with family planning services; (3) MSI Burkina Faso provided 19,116 clients with family planning services; and (4) in total, it is estimated that the services and support provided by MSI helped to avert 221,358 unintended pregnancies, 60,867 unsafe abortions and 232 maternal deaths.