MSI-US

Marie Stopes International-US (MSI) is one of the largest family planning and reproductive health service delivery organizations in the world. This grant would support a partnership between MSI and IDEO.org to use design thinking, or human-centered design, to prototype new ways to increase the number of young people who use reproductive health services in Zambia. MSI’s program in Zambia seeks to increase the number of youth using its services, given this population’s high unplanned pregnancy rates, and this collaboration with IDEO.org is expected to provide innovative solutions for MSI to test. This project also seeks to demonstrate to the field the potential value of design thinking as an approach for increasing reproductive health services more broadly. The grant is proposed as part of the Foundation’s new strategy to use new tools and approaches to make sure that no woman has an unintended pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa.

Marie Stopes International US (MSI-US) is one of the largest international family planning and reproductive health service delivery organizations in the world. MSI’s reach is significant and growing; it operates in forty countries through 611 clinics, 6,000 clinical outreach sites, 1,500 franchised providers, and 8,000 team members. Marie Stopes articulates how it will achieve the desired outcomes in "The Power of Ten", its organizational strategy for 2011–2015, which aims to make the biggest contribution possible to achieving the Millennium Development Goal targets of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters (against a 1990 baseline) and promoting universal access to reproductive health by 2015. This funding would enable MSI to implement this strategy, focusing on its five-year goals in terms of health impact, organizational capacity building, and enhanced revenue generation.