Family planning advocates can help ensure that a country’s policies and funding promote access to DMPA-SC and self-injection along with other contraceptive options so women can make an informed and voluntary choice.
Decision-makers need to advance relevant approvals and policies to introduce or scale up DMPA-SC and self-injection, alongside integration in guidelines, training materials, logistics management systems, and health monitoring and information systems. Advocacy tools and approaches are available here to guide development of an advocacy strategy and action plan that speaks to your country context. Materials are also available to create compelling and accurate messaging and public outreach.
Describes key evidence-building efforts, advocacy actions, and policy changes in Uganda brought about by key partners to increase access to injectable contraception, including DMPA-SC. You can draw on lessons learned from Uganda to inform your policy goals and advocacy strategy for increasing method choice and access with DMPA-SC in your country.
Summarizes important takeaways for advocates from the latest guidance released by the World Health Organization on hormonal contraception, including DMPA injectables, and HIV for women at high risk of HIV.
This toolkit contains resources designed to help pharmacy associations become effective advocates and begin working to change policies in their countries. The toolkit can be adapted to advocate for any injectable contraceptive. The toolkit includes a Resource for Considering DMPA-SC.
Institutional author(s): SHOPS Plus, USAID
Publication date: May, 2019
This policy landscape can be leveraged by applicants interested in applying to the DMPA-SC Regulatory Advocacy Catalytic Opportunity Fund (COF). The landscape was originally developed in 2020 to understand policies and regulations, including over-the-counter regulations, that impact women’s access to DMPA-SC and identify short- and long-term advocacy opportunities. In 2022, it was refreshed to understand policy shifts and additional advocacy opportunities in a subset of 12 of the original 18 countries currently eligible for the Regulatory Advocacy COF. Insights from the policy landscape have informed the design and eligibility criteria of the Regulatory Advocacy COF, proactively identified opportunities, and provided frameworks and guidance for interested applicants.
The desire for private sector family planning programs to have the ability to overbrand/overpackage the Pfizer Inc. DMPA-SC product, Sayana® Press, has existed since initial product introduction planning discussions among global partners in 2008–2009. The PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative solicited input from the team’s regional technical advisors, country coordinators, and local partners to better understand the status of overbranding, and any related advocacy, in the countries where we work.
This brief summarizes recent evidence from African countries on the costs and cost-effectiveness of DMPA-SC. Key findings include that DMPA-SC may help reduce service delivery costs by catalyzing expansion of channels closest to women and that self-injected DMPA-SC is cost-saving as compared to clinic-administered DMPA-IM when accounting for costs to women and health systems.