IntraHealth

In late 2011, with funding from the Hewlett Foundation, IntraHealth International, Inc. initiated an effort in Francophone West Africa to build civil society’s capacity to advocate for family planning services and to hold governments accountable for improving national family planning programs. The project, called the Civil Society for Family Planning (CS4FP) project, created advocacy coalitions in Benin, Mali, and Senegal whose membership includes nongovernmental service delivery organizations, religious leaders, youth and women’s associations. This grant would extend the CS4FP project and permit IntraHealth to develop options for creating a family planning advocacy network for civil society throughout the region.

This grant to IntraHealth International will support the installation of videoconferencing equipment at its Nairobi, Kenya country office. IntraHealth already benefits from access to videoconferencing equipment in its Chapel Hill, NC and Washington, DC offices. Creating a third video conferencing hub in Nairobi will not only reduce the need to travel between locations but strengthen IntraHealth’s global communications infrastructure by connecting more than one hundred Kenyan staff with its US-based offices.

IntraHealth International strengthens the skills of health workers and improves health systems in developing countries to allow each to be better able to meet the needs of the communities they serve. This grant to IntraHealth would support installation of videoconferencing equipment in its Dakar, Senegal office -- equipment that would directly benefit Hewlett Foundation-funded IntraHealth projects based in Senegal. This grant builds on a successful videoconferencing grant awarded to IntraHealth in 2012 to install similar equipment in its Nairobi, Kenya office. The organization has videoconferencing equipment in its Chapel Hill, NC and Washington, DC offices, which will allow staff in the organization's United States offices be able to more effectively communicate with staff in East and West Africa. Creating this fourth video conferencing hub in Senegal for IntraHealth will also reduce the need for staff travel to and from the United States and strengthen IntraHealth’s global communications infrastructure.