2014 Business Action on Health Awards (Commended): Cycle Technologies

COMMENDED: Cycle Technologies

Program: Solutions for Unmet Need in Family Planning

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About the Community Investment Program: Since 2002, Cycle Technologies has partnered with the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University under the Solutions for Unmet Need in Family Planning (SUN-FP) program to provide family planning options that meet the needs of women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies. Under SUN-FP, Cycle Technologies and IRH have worked with health programs in over 60 countries to make available simple, effective fertility awareness-based family planning options. To date, 3.5+ million women have used these methods – an estimated 4.5 million unplanned pregnancies have been prevented and 750,000 women have successfully planned pregnancies.The program’s focus is on countries with significant unmet need for contraception throughout Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. In all of these countries, the target population is women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies and are either not using a modern contraceptive method or are not satisfied with the method they are using. In many countries, the focus is at a nationwide level. In others, the focus is on those regions or sub-groups with the most unmet need for contraception. Critical Success Factors

  • The partners take an innovative, woman-centric approach in developing solutions. This differs from traditional “top-down” approaches which tend to emphasize the needs of health providers and programs over end-users.
  • The partners leverage the benefits of a public-private collaboration. IRH, as a renowned non-profit research organization, develops the evidence base and conducts the research needed to ensure that the program meets the needs of beneficiaries appropriately. Cycle Technologies, as a consumer product company, focuses on providing low cost, high quality products and developing global brands.
  • The partners have had a long-term commitment to this project and have engaged champions and stakeholders throughout the process to support scale-up and sustainability.