Location Family planning

Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH2ACTION)

Objective

The WISH programme empowers women in some of the world’s poorest countries to plan when to have children, to stay in education, and to get better jobs. Funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, this programme was split into two lots. We partnered with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Marie Stopes International (MSI), Options, Humanity and Inclusion (HI), and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to implement Lot 2, also known as WISH2ACTION. We delivered multimedia campaigns directing people towards partner-provided sexual health services and promoting modern contraceptive use.

Locations

Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia

Themes

Family planning – encouraging birth spacing, delayed first pregnancy, male engagement in family planning, and tackling myths and addressing stigma (youth and disability).

Formats

TV, radio, social media, mobile videos, audio-visual cards, and multiple innovative interventions.

Scope

At peak, we broadcast on 173 radio stations and 16 TV stations in seven countries. We also distributed audio-visual content on Facebook and via networks of government and NGO partners.

Estimated Reach

121 million people

Project at a glance

11 Million
unplanned pregnancies averted
3.1 MILLION
extra users of modern contraceptives
19,700
maternal deaths averted

All Impact Results

Our Approach

One woman interviewing another woman sitting by laundry drying on the line in Uganda

Science

Scaling Up Our Tested Family Planning Campaign

We built on results from our randomised controlled trial (RCT) in Burkina Faso which demonstrated that mass media campaigns can increase modern contraceptive uptake and improve family planning outcomes. For this project we conducted media analyses to select radio and TV stations and allocate airtime to maximise reach amongst our target populations. We also analysed how to reach the poorest people who may not have consistent access to mass media. To reach these populations we distributed audio and audio-visual content on memory cards for mobile phone sharing as well as ‘audio and ‘video’ cards that play the content directly and are utilised by health workers, peer educators and community mobilisers to create demand for family planning services.

Stories

Engaging, high-impact content

This multi-media campaign made full use of our production expertise. We partnered with several award-winning animation and production studios across Africa to deliver messages on radio, TV, mobile and social media. In developing our key messages, we reviewed literature and public health guidance in each country and consulted extensively with our consortium partners, drawing on their rich knowledge of the local family planning context. We identified five key messages to focus on: birth spacing, delayed first pregnancy, myths around contraceptive methods, youth stigma, and the role of men in family planning. Our Tanzanian team used these briefs to write radio scripts, which were adapted to work in the local context of each country.

We also developed short films which were developed to work across seven countries WISH2ACTION is delivered in. We developed a ten-part animation series targeting young people, taking our audience to the fictional Temzu Town (representing Tanzania, Ethiopia, Madagascar/Malawi/Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda) to empower audiences to make healthy decisions about their reproductive rights. The series follows protagonists Bupe and Omari as they try to keep their heads while falling in love and following their dreams. We also produced an innovative six-episode live action series, Kinyozi, focusing on the role of men in family planning, as well as series of five animations on contraceptive methods which were produced for distribution in family planning clinics in the seven countries.

Radio host with microphone and headphones in studio

Saturation

9 countries, 29 languages, 1 million broadcasts

We produced over 70 radio spots and 27 videos in English, Malagasy, Portuguese, Swahili and 25 other widely spoken local languages.

Our radio spots are broadcast 10 times a day, every day, on the most popular radio stations in the seven countries for 16 months or longer. By the end of this campaign, broadcast over 500,000 individual radio spots. We also broadcast our content on popular TV stations at peak viewing times for our target populations.