Scaling Health and Environment Programs for Resilience
Summary
In 2024, MSI Reproductive Choices and Blue Ventures committed to scaling their successful model for integrating comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services with community-based marine conservation and fisheries management initiatives to three new countries with a goal of reaching 750,000 women. These women and their communities depend on fishing for food and income, but overfishing and habitat degradation are collapsing coastal fisheries, placing these communities at an increased risk of food scarcity and lost livelihoods. Evidence from MSI and Blue Ventures’ work shows that recovering fisheries and marine ecosystems will lead to improved incomes and greater ecosystem resilience. It also demonstrates that integrated programming improves women’s lives and strengthens their roles in development, including on the frontlines of combating climate change.
Approach
MSI and Blue Ventures commit to scaling up their successful model for integrating comprehensive SRH services with community-based marine conservation and fisheries management initiatives to combat the effects of climate change. Through coordinated scale up in new geographies, this partnership will increase access to SRH services and engage women as frontline climate resilience champions. Through improved SRH, women will be better equipped to engage in rebuilding fisheries, alternative livelihoods, and environmental protection. Many will also be engaged as community health workers, playing an active role in strengthening the health system and safeguarding SRH services in the face of climate-related shocks and stressors.
MSI and Blue Ventures will take lessons from their existing partnership in Madagascar to expand to coastal areas of Kenya, Tanzania, and Senegal, where both organizations have deep roots and the SRH needs and climate risks are great.
MSI will provide comprehensive SRH through outreach services, whereby they travel by any means necessary to provide services in rural and remote communities. Using this approach in climate-affected communities offers flexibility in terms of specific location of delivery, and is responsive to the needs and conditions on the ground. Blue Ventures will work with local partner organizations on fisheries management and improved mangrove, seagrass and coral reef protection. In addition to improving the marine habitat, these coastal ecosystems capture and store carbon, which makes them important in fighting climate change.
Working together with local partner organizations to mobilize and engage community members for both SRH services and conservation activities, MSI and Blue Ventures will generate operational efficiencies, increase the reach of their services, and strengthen community engagement in both programs.A potential challenge of this joint commitment includes ensuring effective coordination of activities across all geographies, which will be addressed through regular communication at global, national, and subnational levels.
Action Plan
Over the course of the five-year commitment, MSI and Blue Ventures will expand integrated partnerships to at least three new countries and secure funding from at least five new donors.
Year 1:
Q1-Q2: Finalize country-level plans for scale-up in two countries, defining priority regions and communities in collaboration with local partners, communities themselves, and local government officials.
Host kick-off meetings with local partners and teams, sharing what has worked well in Madagascar and lessons they can bring to these new implementation areas, set expectations, and develop a scale plan.
Engage at least one new donor for this work
Q3-Q4: begin implementation in the two countries and finalize plans for launching the partnership in the third country.
Year 2:
Q1: Review progress made in Year One including communities and people reached with both sexual and reproductive health services and with fisheries management support.
Q2: Continue to engage current and new donors in this work and aim to secure another new funder for this work
Years 3-5:
For the remaining quarters, through to the end of the commitment, MSI and Blue Ventures will hold regular partnership and planning meetings, routinely monitor progress in the communities they are serving and continue to identify opportunities for scale-up.
Each year they will develop an annual report on the state of the partnership and program.
Background
Women and girls in sub-Saharan coastal communities are among the hardest hit by the effects of climate change. Evidence shows that extreme temperatures and weather events affect health system infrastructure and supplies and contribute to poor maternal health outcomes. It is an injustice that women and girls contributing the least to climate change will suffer the most.
MSI analysis determined that 14 million women are at risk of losing access to contraception over the next decade due to climate-related disruptions. When roads are flooded, health posts are damaged, and commodities cannot be delivered, access to care is significantly impacted. This could cause an additional 6.2 million unintended pregnancies, 2.1 million unsafe abortions, and 5,800 pregnancy-related deaths.
These women and their communities depend on fishing for food and income, but overfishing and habitat degradation are collapsing coastal fisheries, placing these communities at increasing risk of food scarcity and lost livelihoods. Recovering fisheries and marine ecosystems will lead to improved incomes and greater ecosystem resilience.
Evidence from MSI and Blue Ventures’ work demonstrates that integrated programming improves women’s lives and strengthens their roles in development, including on the frontlines of combating climate change. When women have access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and can control their fertility, they gain a greater sense of self-efficacy, can plan for the future, and gain confidence and resources to engage in education, livelihoods, and natural resource management activities. Blue Ventures data shows that women using contraception doubled their income from fishing, contributing to household resilience. By participating in alternative income-generating activities, their status and household income improves, and men begin to see the benefits of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies. Contraception provides immediate benefits to women and communities, while bolstering support for the slower progress of climate resilience.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
MSI and Blue Ventures commit to scaling their successful model for integrated programming to additional coastal communities in Tanzania, Kenya, and Senegal. They seek to engage more champions for integrated programming and raise additional funding beyond current commitments to support work at the nexus of conservation and health. MSI and Blue Ventures aim to secure funding from at least five new donors, with a fundraising goal of at least $15 million in new funding.
MSI and Blue Ventures also seek to engage additional implementing partners working with women and girls, and other organizations working in community health and community-based management.
MSI and Blue Ventures seek to engage the media to raise awareness about this intersectional work and to get more people, including donors, engaged in supporting this work., MSI is a leader in delivering high-quality comprehensive SRH services. MSI offers expertise in best practices for an equity-first approach to meeting the SRH needs of diverse populations. MSI also brings strong experience in cross-sectoral partnerships including active participation in integrated health and environment networks across multiple countries. MSI is eager to partner with others to reach more people with the life-changing and life-saving services they need to determine their futures.
Blue Ventures works to restore the world’s oceans and improve the livelihoods of fishing communities. It has a 22-year track record and expertise in designing and scaling human rights-based, community-centered approaches to fisheries management and marine conservation. Blue Ventures supports local partner organizations to adopt its integrated model for rebuilding fisheries and provides the means and connected infrastructure to enable multiple communities to expand the model to the scale of regional fisheries and seascapes.