A performance-based financing (PBF) grant has helped the Kamuli VSC health clinic in Kamuli District, Uganda drastically increase the quantity of family planning services provided to clients. In September 2010, the clinic saw 10 family planning clients per week; now nearly 80 clients receive family planning services each week. Kamuli VSC health clinic is supported by Family Life Education Program (FLEP), a local private sector organization that STRIDES for Family Health has assisted with a PBF contract since September 2010.

On November 16, 2009, MSH gathered leading family planning and reproductive health experts for a lively roundtable discussion on how to build effective, integrated health systems that provide universal access to family planning and reproductive health services.

The BASICS (Basic Support for Institutionalizing Child Survival) Project hosted a symposium in Washington, DC, on September 30, in which government officials and experts shared their experiences of health care issues in conflict and postconflict states. The symposium brought together eight speakers who discussed the importance of planning; the need to coordinate ministries of health, donors, and nongovernmental organizations; and the importance of linking action to a government’s own national strategies in health and development.

A National Medical Store in Uganda. Photo Credit: MSH Staff.The US Agency for International Development recently awarded MSH a five-year, $39-million cooperative agreement to implement the Securing Ugandans’ Right to Essential Medicines (SURE) Program. SURE’s mandate is to make certain that Uganda’s people have access to good-quality essential medicines and health supplies by strengthening the national pharmaceutical supply system.