Halfway through our second year of project implementation, Frontier Health Markets (FHM) Engage teams took a moment to reflect on their progress and plans. From October 2022 to March 2023 – at the start of our second year – we focused on further aligning activities and deepening our understanding of specific product and geographic markets to identify areas where these markets are not meeting the needs of consumers, the root causes of these market constraints, and began to ideate on areas of intervention. For an overview understanding of our overall accomplishments in some of our field support countries, please review our FHM Engage Snapshots of Accomplishments (October 2022 to March 2023) in India, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Tanzania.

The Healthy Markets Community of Practice (HMCoP) is a group dedicated to generating awareness of market development and private sector engagement work happening in different countries and for participants to leave with a greater understanding and appreciation of the country’s health market. The March meeting continued to discuss Tanzania and presenters included Maisha Meds, Palladium Group, PATH, and Social Finance.

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In our March session Farhan Yusuf, FHM Engage Chief of Party for Tanzania, was introduced as co-facilitator of the HMCoP. As co-facilitator Farhan will engage members, facilitate sessions, and serve as a point of contact for the group moving forward. 

USAID Health Development Officer Kuyosh Kadirov started the session by introducing PSE Modernize, a reform initiative launched in November 2022 to create the institutional conditions, operating infrastructure, and capacity necessary to scale engagement and investment with the private sector. Additionally, the USAID Enterprises for Development, Growth, and Empowerment (EDGE) Fund and the USAID localization strategy were presented to the group. 

The third meeting of the Healthy Markets Community of Practice returned its focus to Tanzania. After February's session, participants were eager to continue the conversation and expand and explore what was previously discussed. The topics covered four thematic areas:

• Data
• Stewardship
• Product Leakage
• Financing Challenges

Dan Rosen, Director of New Business at Maisha Meds delved further into the data to explore the difference in emergency contraceptive (EC) sales data between private facilities and the demographic and health surveys (DHS) in Tanzania.  

Next, Cindi Cisek Senior Technical Advisor from Palladium Group gave an overview on the characteristics of stewardship. Stewardship has been identified as an area of high interest that could be revisited in future sessions.

Product leakage was the next topic covered by Ashley Jackson, Team Lead Sexual and Reproductive Health at PATH. Ashley covered the leakage of contraceptive products from the public to the private sector and what approaches are best suited to prevent leakage.

The last speaker of the session was Mariam Nael, Associate Director & DEI Lead at Social Finance. Mariam covered financing challenges that exist in the private sector that provide contraceptive services, specifically at the local level, and how financing and technical assistance can be used to address these challenges.

Discussion and engagement during this session was dynamic and we were pleased to see so many actors that are doing work in private sector family planning participating. These types of robust and productive technical conversations are what we envision for the practice.

We are excited that there was such a positive response to this session, and we look forward to continued participation in future sessions from everyone that attended. 

Resources

If you are interested in accessing any of the links that were shared or mentioned during the presentation or in the teams chat you can find them using this link. To specifically access pdf of The Contraceptive Security Indicators Survey use this link. 
 
Please feel free to share this information with anyone that you think would benefit from our group. 

Future Meetings

The next HMCoP will take place on April 26th and we will be revisiting Nigeria. If you would like to take part in this session, please email Elizabeth Peña at (epena@FHM-Engage.org) or Farhan Yusuf (fyusuf@FHM-Engage.org).

Questions?

Please email Jessica Jones (jjones@chemonics.com) or Elizabeth Peña (epena@FHM-Engage.org). 

The Healthy Markets Community of Practice (HMCoP) is a group dedicated to generating awareness of market development and private sector engagement work happening in different countries and for participants to leave with a greater understanding and appreciation of the country’s health market. The February meeting focused on Tanzania and participants included Abt Associates, Avenir Health, Healthy Entrepreneurs, Health for a Prosperous Nations, Healthy Shield Foundation, and Maisha Meds.

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After a successful inaugural country-focused session in January, looking at Nigeria, the CoP turned this month to Tanzania. Our February session was co-facilitated by FHM Engage Chief of Party for Tanzania, Farhan Yusuf. Building on the approach from the Nigeria session, this month's discussion placed an even greater emphasis on development and private sector engagement happening in Tanzania. 

Market actors and implementing partners provided brief 5-minute updates on their efforts with the private sector to improve the country's family planning (FP) markets. 

To start, FHM Engage consultant Sarah Alphs provided a brief overview of the FP market and set the stage for our presenters who came from Abt Associates, Avenir Health, Healthy Entrepreneurs, Health for a Prosperous Nation (HPON), Healthy Shield Foundation (HESHIF), and Maisha Meds. 

Presentations covered digital infrastructure for last mile universal healthcare, reaching young women through girl-friendly drug shops, improving access to family planning methods through the health education model in rural and hard to reach areas, and exploring cost drivers of publicly and privately provided family planning services, just to name a few.  

Overall, we were delighted to see such a positive response to this session. We had 85 participants join in an engaging and thoughtful discussion, with presenters able to respond to questions and take a deeper look at the materials presented. We look forward to continued participation in future sessions from everyone that attended. 

Other Updates

Unfortunately, due to scheduling constraints the session focusing on Pakistan has been postponed. Once we have a topic confirmed we will send out a calendar invite detailing the new meeting agenda. 

Please feel free to share these updates with anyone that you think would benefit from our group. 

Future Meetings

Due to the high level of interest in the Tanzania-focused session, we are considering organizing another call or meeting to expand on what was discussed. This session could possibly be in-person for those based in the country. If you would like to take part in this session, please email Elizabeth Peña at (epena@FHM-Engage.org) or Farhan Yusuf (fyusuf@FHM-Engage.org).

Questions?

Please email Jessica Jones (jjones@chemonics.com) or Elizabeth Peña (epena@FHM-Engage.org).