Reporting Organization: | University of Ottawa |
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Total Budget ($CAD): | $ 350,000 |
Timeframe: | November 1, 2018 - November 30, 2020 |
Status: | Completion |
Contact Information: |
Angel Foster |
Bangladesh - $ 70,000.00 (20.00%) | |
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Jordan - $ 70,000.00 (20.00%) | |
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Somalia - $ 70,000.00 (20.00%) | |
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Afghanistan - $ 35,000.00 (10.00%) | |
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Congo (DRC) - $ 35,000.00 (10.00%) | |
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Iraq - $ 35,000.00 (10.00%) | |
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Albania - $ 17,500.00 (5.00%) | |
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Cameroon - $ 17,500.00 (5.00%) | |
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Health Systems, Training & Infrastructure (25 %) | |
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Reproductive Health & Rights incl. Maternal Health (25 %) | |
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Human Rights, Advocacy & Public Engagement (25 %) | |
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Humanitarian Response (25 %) | |
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Currently, the global forcibly displaced population exceeds 65 million people, with one in four being a woman or girl of reproductive age. They are at serious risk of death or disability due to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) complications, including: unsafe abortion, a major contributor to maternal death and disability in humanitarian contexts; forced marriage; and, sexual violence. They are also at an elevated risk of acquiring HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
The lack of data on SRH in humanitarian settings is a critical global issue, particularly in access to abortion care. This data problem presents challenges for effective resource allocation and timely service delivery, thereby impacting the health outcomes of extraordinarily vulnerable populations, especially women and girls.
In 2018, the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises (IAWG) released an updated edition of their Inter-Agency Field Manual and Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings, providing explicit guidelines to data collection and monitoring and evaluation at different stages of an emergency. This project will leverage the release of an updated manual and the rekindled discussions it has brought forth. The team will dedicate its efforts to improving data collection on SRH in humanitarian settings and the development of indicators. This aligned well as the Canadian government has identified comprehensive abortion care as a neglected and priority area (2019).
This initiative will apply a broader multi-country assessment approach to collect data and develop tools which can be successfully replicated across all humanitarian settings. Despite diversity in humanitarian context, the tools will be enabled to facilitate expansion, support scale-up and promote adherence to global guidelines.
Gender and age: | Adult women Adolescent females |
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Descriptors: | Refugees Internally displaced people (IDP) |
Total Direct Population: | Unspecified |
Focus group discussions held | |
1 | Knowledge sharing webinar hosted |
112 | Participants engaged in knowledge sharing webinar |
14 | Key informant interviews conducted |
2 | Facility mapping exercises completed |
• The team will dedicate its efforts to improving data collection on SRH in humanitarian settings and the development of indicators specific to safe access to abortion.
• Strengthen Capacity: Building on established partnerships, this initiative will strengthen the capacity of SRH research in Canada, as well as train and mobilize resources for SRH teams in humanitarian settings to help improve their data collection processes.
• Create generalizable approaches for data collection in humanitarian settings: This initiative spans eight countries and will develop an approach and tools for collecting data that can be successfully replicated across different humanitarian settings. The tools will be designed to be more broadly used, as well as to facilitate expansion and promote adherence to global guidelines
(1) Established a new partnership with WHO to expand this project’s materials into a global project (toolkit) dedicated to collecting a core set of (Sexual Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Adolescent Health) indicators in humanitarian settings.
(2) Conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key informants regarding past challenges, awareness of revised guidelines, and perceptions of data collection requirements.
(3) Data collection: completed rapid assessment and analyses in original (Jordan and Bangladesh) and expanded countries for tool piloting and context evaluation. Expanded countries with WHO partnership – Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia. Data collection mapping exercise and gap analysis to review already collected data and identify where data are gathered within each context.
(4) Results disseminated to global stakeholder dialogues in high-level WHO meetings to advance tool development and embed indicators devised into the WHO toolkit. The Lab’s tools are being aligned with requirements of multilateral and bilateral donors to approach a comprehensive accountability framework.
(5) In-depth engagement with the Government of Jordan to incorporate developed indicators into Jordan’s ten-year national strategy for SRHR.