Developing regional capacity in operations research and economic evaluation in South Asia

This project contributed significantly to the capacity-building of regional professionals in planning, implementing, and monitoring of reproductive health programs in South Asia. During 2001–05, professionals from 17 countries received training in various aspects of reproductive health in nine workshops, including operations research, economic evaluation, qualitative research methods, proposal writing, and process documentation and enhancing the utilization of research findings in reproductive health programs. Forty-three percent of workshop participants were program managers from government health programs and nongovernmental organizations. Success in leveraging resources from other collaborating agencies and other donors helped the project to organize more workshops than originally planned and train more professionals than expected. A survey of the workshop participants four to 38 months after training revealed that 70 percent of respondents were using their newly acquired skills in programmatic improvement, program development, and conducting operations research

Manual for Building Capacity of Trainers and Program Managers in Emergency Contraception

This manual equips trainers with appropriate knowledge on emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs). Emergency contraception (EC) refers to any method of contraception that can be used by a woman to prevent an unwanted pregnancy within three days of unprotected intercourse or a contraceptive accident such as condom leakage. This manual discusses ECPs and the provision of related services. After a day’s training, trainers have the knowledge and skills necessary to train service providers and workers on ECPs. The manual is divided into four sessions. The first provides an overview of the demographic and reproductive health (RH) situation in South and South East Asia and briefly discusses the role of EC as an RH intervention. The second defines EC, and discusses when and how ECPs should be taken. Service delivery guidelines are covered in the third session, particularly what users should do in case of method failure. The fourth session covers counseling on ECPs and frequently asked questions on EC

Developing regional operations research training capacity in South Asia

This project’s overall objective was to create a self-sustaining regional operations research (OR) training and research center for South Asia at the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), in Mumbai, India. The goal was to institutionalize operations research (OR) in IIPS by building the teaching and research capabilities of the faculty and research team. Capacity building was accomplished through a training of trainers that included an OR workshop in Nepal, two four-day OR workshops for program managers, one ten-day OR workshop for researchers, and a four-day scientific-writing course for researchers and program managers to provide guidelines for preparing research articles and reports. Nine OR studies were carried out, and 12 articles were published in peer-reviewed national and international journals. As noted in this report, capacity-building activities also produced an important multiplier effect in three additional organizations: The National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), New Delhi, India, the Center for Operations Research Training, Vadodara, India, and the Medical College of Ahmadabad, India