Dissemination Strategy

Improving family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) programs through research requires that the results of that research reach those who make programmatic decisions both within and outside the study area. In addition to fostering the utilization of research results within the study area, the SFPS Project is committed to the sharing lessons learned across borders. To reach both local and regional audiences, a multi-pronged dissemination strategy is employed. Each SFPS operations research study includes a dissemination plan that generally encompasses seminars at appropriate administrative levels in the area where the study was carried out, and a variety of mediums to reach a larger audience such as monographs of research results, presentations at international conferences, and summaries in the SFPS newsletter and on the SFPS World-Wide-Web (WWW) page.

Dissemination Seminars

Dissemination seminars are an important medium for discussing results with those implicated in the study, especially decision makers. The seminars are designed to be as participatory as possible, creating a open atmosphere to discuss the results of a given study and the appropriate actions to be taken to improve the program.

To date several dissemination seminars have already taken place including the Situation Analysis Utilization and Dissemination Conference held in collaboration with the Population Council in Dakar, Senegal in June 1997, and the Seminar on Family Planning Program Structure, Cost, and Performance held in collaboration with the EVALUATION Project in Abidjan in July 1997. In addition, provincial level seminars were held in December 1997 to disseminate the results of a study in Burkina Faso on the level of functioning of community health committees that was conducted with MWANAGZA, a local NGO.

SFPS Research Results Series

Research reports are often very detailed, lengthy, and not easily digestible by non-researchers. To bring the key results of operations research studies to a larger audience, executive summaries of each study will be created and published in the SFPS Research Results Series. These results series will provide the reader with the essential information on the study including the objectives, methodology and principle results. The series will be widely disseminated both within and outside the West Africa region to share lessons learned.

SFPS Newsletter

Each quarter the SFPS Project publishes a newsletter that includes contributions from each component, including operations research. As the newsletter is widely distributed to African partners in the region, it provides an ideal venue to present brief summaries of research studies.

WEB page

Tulane University has developed a WEB page for the SFPS Project provides a forum for disseminating the results of studies in summary form as well as provide access to the complete papers.

Presentations at International Conferences

While presentations at international conferences may not directly lead to programmatic improvements at the local level, they do foster the sharing of lessons learned across boarders. Several papers were presented at the Tenth International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa held in December 1997 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. In addition, an abstract for the Burkina Faso health committee study has been submitted to the National Council for International Health conference that will be held in June 1998.

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