A New Social and Economic Investment Case for Family Planning and Sexual and Reproductive Health (FP-IMPACT)

The Family Planning and Sexual and Reproductive Health Impact Modeling and Research Consortium (FP/SRH-Impact) is a three-year, multi-partner initiative that will generate robust, stakeholder-informed estimates of how family planning and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services affect people’s well-being across different social and economic domains.  

Rather than just focusing on macro-level impacts like fertility decline, this initiative will centre on supporting women’s family planning/SRH intentions as a path to empowerment, human capital development, and economic advancement. The evidence generated will help expand how the value of investing in family planning/SRH is framed, going beyond just health impacts to also illustrate the longer-term social and economic benefits. 

FP/SRH-Impact uses a model-based approach to generate evidence. This model-based approach will clarify and quantify the multi-directional relationships between reproductive behaviours/mechanisms and various development outcomes in a way that classical statistical methods cannot. It will draw from multiple data sources to simulate impacts under different policy scenarios. 

• Summarise existing literature and develop a modeling scope of work 
• Develop and assess models using different approaches (e.g. Bayesian tree analysis, agent-based models) to estimate impact of family planning on economic development 
• Synthesise the resulting evidence from different models into consensus findings 
• Disseminate research, advocate, and facilitate evidence utilisation through targeted outputs such as briefs, journal articles and online tools. 

The project aims to use evidence generated and dissemination activities to inform and generate momentum toward increased resources (foreign assistance, national budget allocations, policies that support expanded access) for family planning and other SRH services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 

• Guttmacher Institute (Secretariat) 
• African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) 
• Avenir Health 
• Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM)