African Population and Health Research Center

As a premier research and policy think tank, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) generates evidence, strengthens research and related capacity in the African research and development ecosystem, and engages policymakers to inform action on health and development. APHRC’s extensive expertise and connections across health and development sectors in Africa and an emphasis on ecosystem strengthening afford the organization a unique role in the field, which it leverages to inform and influence policy and decision makers. This core support grant enables APHRC to deepen priority areas under its current strategic plan. (Strategy: Global Reproductive Equity)

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 well-being. 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.