Effects and cost of implementing a gender-sensitive reproductive health program.

The Integral Health Coordination Program (Programa de Coordinacion en Salud Integral or PROCOSI) is a network of 24 Bolivian NGOs that coordinates and implements programs to improve the health of the population in need. In 2000 PROCOSI received funding from the USAID Mission in Bolivia to institutionalize a gender perspective in the reproductive and sexual health services offered by the PROCOSI network. Seventeen organizations from the PROCOSI network participated and proposed: 1) to conduct a baseline diagnostic study of the degree to which participating organizations had incorporated gender into their administrative and service delivery policies; 2) to identify problematic areas develop action plans and implement activities to improve the problems identified based on the baseline study; and 3) to conduct an endline evaluation to see the degree to which the activities had achieved the objectives. The baseline and endline studies were conducted with the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) methodology and technical assistance. PROCOSI and the Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program (FRONTIERS) took advantage of this opportunity to evaluate the effects that interventions had on clinic clients and their partners and to estimate the costs of incorporating a gender perspective into service delivery. FRONTIERS selected 10 clinics run by nine organizations participating in PROCOSI’s Gender Program and in each carried out: 1) exit interviews of clients after their visits to the clinic before and after the gender interventions; 2) a follow-up of these same women in their households three months after the exit interview; 3) a household survey of a sample of the women’s partners; 4) an analysis of service statistics; 5) a study of the costs of incorporating a gender perspective into service delivery; and 6) a qualitative follow-up study of changes that took place in participating organizations with monthly visits to each clinic. (excerpt)