African Population and Health Research Center

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is a premier African research institution and policy focused think tank whose mission is to generate evidence, strengthen research and related capacities, and engage policy actors to inform action on population health and wellbeing. In 2021, APHRC and Ibis Reproductive Health, another Hewlett grantee, undertook an ethnographic study to document the lived experiences of women and girls in Senegal who had been accused of infanticide, a highly prevalent practice in Senegal, where abortion is completely restricted. This grant will support APHRC and Ibis to conduct a robust dissemination of the findings, co-developing advocacy tools to support improved policies, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the circumstances that lead girls and women to commit infanticide, as well as improve their social and professional reintegration after incarceration. (Strategy: Global Reproductive Equity)

This grant to the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) will support a national abortion incidence study in Kenya. In partnership with the Guttmacher Institute, APHRC will use mixed research methods to produce an updated estimate of the number of induced abortions in Kenya and the magnitude and severity of unsafe abortion-related complications. The previous estimates were done in 2012 and since then the abortion landscape in Kenya has shifted dramatically with the availability of self-managed medication abortion as well as increasing criminalization efforts from anti-abortion actors. This project will have a focus on evidence dissemination with policy advocates and government partners as well as research capacity-building efforts between the two research institutions involved. This grant is aligned with the Global Reproductive Equity strategy outcome that safe abortion is legal and/or decriminalized in a greater number of East and Francophone West African countries and is accessible to more women and girls in these countries.

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya, conducts policy-relevant research on population and health issues facing sub-Saharan Africa. Earlier this year, in collaboration with two other Foundation grantees, APHRC released results from a nationwide study on the extent of unsafe abortion in Kenya. Based on findings of a relatively high prevalence of unsafe abortion, the study showed the urgent need for concerted efforts in Kenya to promote women’s access to quality reproductive health services—thereby decreasing abortion-related morbidity and mortality. This grant would support a study that will assess the financial costs of the incidence of unsafe abortion to Kenya’s health system, providing additional evidence needed to support policy advocacy and political engagement, as well as grounds for legal and policy reform in Kenya.