The Gender Team at USAID's Office of Population and Reproductive Health has developed a new guiding document, titled Essential Considerations for Engaging Men and Boys for Improved Family Planning Outcomes for use by USAID staff at missions and headquarters, implementing partners, and other donors and stakeholders engaged in decision-making about program investments and strategic planning of family planning (FP) interventions.

Globally, male use of FP is lower than female use, and there are many gender-related barriers that prevent men from using or supporting contraceptive use. To address this, FP programming can engage men and boys in meaningful and gender-transformative ways that improve FP and reproductive health (RH) outcomes for men and women and protect and encourage women’s agency.

This new resource (attached) provides a rationale for why men and boys should be engaged in FP efforts in cooperative ways that improve FP/RH outcomes and facilitate women and girls’ agency. It provides a framework for implementation of male engagement in FP programming that focuses on transforming inequitable gender norms while engaging men as users, supportive partners and agents of change. The document also offers examples of effective service delivery and social and behavior change male engagement interventions that have been shown to increase FP use and, in some cases, could be adapted for other geographical and cultural contexts.