Philippines

One challenge in the delivery of family planning and reproductive health services in many of the remote, often upland, communities where we work is the lack of trained health workers and limited municipal government resources to deliver health services.

To address this, CI and partners developed an initiative to establish a system of community-based distributor centers for services and commodities. This project has been particularly successful in the Philippines, where six community-based distributor centers have been established in strategic areas working with local government partners. 

The centers are managed by midwives and Barangay health workers. Local agents have also been trained to deliver supplies to outlying areas.

The rural health workers in the Philippines make strong efforts to follow up and monitor families in their area, which has greatly contributed to the project's success.

Results of the project include:

• Strengthened family planning and reproductive health services by building the capacity of the local government and more than 490 barangay health workers and other local health workers in Baggao.

• Promoted effective delivery of family planning and reproductive health supplies and related services to the local communities in the target area.

• Raised the contraceptive use in our target zone from 59 percent in 2003 to 70 percent in 2008.

• Assisted in the creation of local government and community policies that addressed links between family planning, migration, and natural resource management.

IN DEPTH: Learn about more population, health and environment initiatives in the Philippines.