Consultancy Services

Health Policy Plus (HP+) is a USAID-funded five-year $185 million project awarded to Palladium (formerly Futures Group) on August 28, 2015. HP+ has a mandate across global, country, and subnational levels to strengthen and advance health policy priorities in HIV, family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), and maternal health. It aims to improve the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems through policy development and implementation, with an emphasis on voluntary, rights-based health programs, and by strengthening in-country partners’ capacity to navigate complex environments for effective policy design, implementation, and financing aligned to their priorities.

A key component of improving the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems is a transparent legal framework. Family planning donors, advocates, and implementers around the world have demonstrated increased interest in accountability as a useful lens for supporting the achievement of family planning goals, as evidenced by the attention given to the issue by FP2020, the advocacy and accountability working group of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, and the multitude of case studies, tools, and resources on accountability that have been recently published by HP+, Advance Family Planning, the Evidence Project, and others.

Policies, grounded in laws, provide the basis for accountability, responsiveness, and sustainable reforms. Health system accountability is complex, with multiple actors representing several sectors – the government, clients/citizens, and providers who all play a part in strengthening and supporting accountability for political, programmatic, and financial commitments. Accountability for family planning is rooted in health and family planning strategies and policies, and other areas of the law, including, for example, laws that establish and protect cadres of health workers, public accountability laws, and laws regulating speech, information dissemination, and CSOs.

To achieve the above purpose, HP+ will complete the following steps:

1. conduct a desk review of existing HP+ approaches and additional legal environment assessment resources (February – September 2019)

2. select two countries in which to apply the approach (February 2019)

3. develop analysis approach (February – October 2019)

4. apply the approach in two selected countries (Zambia and the Philippines) (October 2019 – March 2020)

5. complete analysis, conduct webinar, and finalize approach (March – May 2020)