To improve women’s and girls’ access to quality SRH services, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) supported ARHR’s implementation of the Women, Newborn, Children, and Adolescent Wellbeing (WNCAW) project from 2017 to 2020. ARHR documented the experiences and perceptions of women and adolescent girls regarding their access to quality and affordable sexual and reproductive health services through scorecard assessments in five (5) African countries—Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso. ARHR led the multi-stakeholder policy dialogue processes of the project. Key outcomes of these processes included:
Utilization of evidence from the scorecard assessments by key decision makers to inform policy and practice. Service providers across implementing communities within the five implementing countries used and continue to use the results of the assessment to inform decision-making. For example, in terms of service delivery, facilities that did not have basic equipment like pediatric weighing scales and BP apparatuses have had these provided by the national and district health authorities.
There is also emerging evidence of improvement in provider-client relationships that have contributed to increased uptake of sexual and reproductive health services by women and girls across all five implementing countries.