About the Project

Source: https://www.aucegypt.edu/research/social-research-center/informing-social-policies-and-actions-accelerate-progress/about Parent: https://www.aucegypt.edu/research/social-research-center/informing-social-policies-and-actions-accelerate-progress

Since 2018, United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA) strategic goals have focused on achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH), ensuring reproductive rights for all, and accelerating the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action as well as contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs).  In its pursuit of these goals, the UNFPA strategic plans focused on accelerating the achievement of three transformative results: namely, by 2025, (a) the reduction of the unmet need for family planning, (b) the reduction of preventable maternal deaths; and (c) the reduction of gender-based violence and harmful practices, including female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage. 

While most Arab countries have developed strategies and/or action plans that addressed these transformative results through adopting an equity lens, the translation of this lens was restricted to pathways and initiatives in the health care system, with no adequate recognition of the significant impact of other social forces. The social sectors were engaged in these pathways and initiatives as mere supporters of the health system at the level of multisectoral collaboration.   

More specifically, what is missing in the adopted SRH strategies and actions is:

• An explicit adoption of the new development paradigm that embraces human rights-based and gender-transformative approaches, with particular emphasis on structural inequalities and intersectionality of vulnerability factors
• Effective collaboration among social and health sectors in which social policies recognize health and its equitable distribution as crucial development goals, not just health sectoral targets
• A stewardship role for the health sector that emphasizes data and evidence and ensures effective partnerships among different and significant players

Objectives

This multiphase project seeks to develop a methodological guide with well-defined steps for adopting the new social policy framing for health equity in the three transformative results and supporting relevant stakeholders in utilizing it to advocate for health equity and implement the social determinants of health Equity (SDH) approach in policies and programs. Starting in 2021, the project spans over three phases. The first phase focused on building the Social Determinants of Health Equity framework for the three transformative Goals, the second phase encompassed providing an illustration of contextualizing the main forces underlying the transformative goals, and developing the methodological guide for adopting the new social policy, and the third focused on promoting the adoption of the methodological guide among UNPA/ASRO Staff, policymakers and program implementers.

Project Activities and Outputs

• Preparing background papers on social policies in the three transformative results

• A review report on current Maternal mortality and unmet needs for family planning frameworks and Arab countries’ strategies

• A review report on current Gender-based Violence action plans and strategies

• Contextualizing the determinants of the three transformative results in the Arab countries 

• A report on the contextualization of maternal mortality and unmet needs for family planning determinants in three Arab countries: Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco

• Carrying out a consultation meeting with leading stakeholders in the three transformative results 

• Meeting agenda and presentations (Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan)

• Developing the methodological guide for the new social policy approach

• A report for the methodological guide

• Holding a high-level meeting to promote the adoption, operationalization, and implementation of the new methodology

• Meeting agenda and presentations

• Meeting report
• Filling the current gap in the Arab researchers, practitioners, and policymakers’ capacities to define, collect comprehensive, standard, and comparable data on VAW and to analyze these data and interpret the findings into policy recommendations for assessing and monitoring VAW in the Arab countries.