Improved Access, Utilization, and Quality of Services

WI-HER advances equity and inclusivity in everything we do, particularly in improving access to, utilization, and quality of public and private services across all sectors.

Our approach

Through targeted technical assistance, policy design and implementation, and tailored coaching and mentoring, we support governments, donors, implementing partners, and service providers to create service delivery systems that are effective, equitable, and person-centered. Ultimately, our support for equitable and inclusive service delivery reverberates across health, education, and other sectors to truly improve the well-being of communities and individuals.  

Our team members reinforce quality assurance while supporting local stakeholders to design and implement gender-sensitive and responsive solutions and cultivating gender-responsive skills with service providers. By taking into account the needs, constraints, and opportunities of all people, including vulnerable or historically marginalized groups such as migrants and people with disabilities, we consider the intersectional factors that increase vulnerability and may contribute to poor health and development outcomes. And by responding to these factors strategically, we help foster more equitable and inclusive systems. 

Our services

WI-HER grounds our approach to improving access, utilization, and quality of services through use of our innovative iDARE methodology. Using iDARE, WI-HER facilitates:

• Identifying and analyzing social and cultural factors that influence who can access and utilize quality services.

• Identifying gaps in service delivery and utilization between women, men, girls, boys, people of other gender identities, and excluded groups such as persons with disabilities, migrants, and refugees. 

• Responding to inequitable norms at the individual, household, and community levels to generate shifts in thinking and behavior.

• Co-creating and testing locally rooted solutions to address identified gaps.

• Documenting and using data to scale successful solutions or design new solutions.

Examples of our impact

Through the USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems (ASSIST) Project in Uganda, WI-HER supported communities to establish quality improvement teams to mobilize resources and provide accessible points of family planning services for adolescent girls and young women. As a result, contraceptive use amongst adolescent girls and young women increased from 47.3% to 81.5% in about six months.

In Malawi, also through the USAID ASSIST project, WI-HER supported local communities to utilize quality improvement to improve the percentage of boys and girls that passed exams in 16 schools from 49% to 69.5% for girls, and 51.6% to 70.8% for boys over a three-year period.

Through the USAID ASSIST project in Burundi, WI-HER supported facilities to apply quality improvement to improve male partner involvement in the prevention of mother to child transmission. From September 2015 to July 2016, the percentage of women who tested for HIV during antenatal care (ANC) whose partners also tested for HIV went from 50% to 90% in 15 sites. In 194 scale up sites, the percentage of pregnant women tested during ANC whose partners were also tested went from 15% in May 2015 to 58% in November 2016.

In Kenya, through the USAID Afya Nyota ya Bonde Project, eight facilities supported by WI-HER have increased the identification and management of gender-based violence (GBV) survivors by 642% over 10 months of applying gender sensitive, responsive and person centered quality improvement approaches. The facilities have increased the identification and management of male GBV survivors by 2,250%.

Through the USAID Integrated Health Program in Nigeria, WI-HER coached service providers in a health facility in Bauchi State to identify and address gaps in adolescent-responsive service delivery. As a result, adolescent use of family planning and antenatal care increased by 58% in more than two months in the facility.

Click here to read more from our latest annual report.