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In-Depth Reading Time: 4 minutes

Why Knowledge Management Matters for Family Planning Costed Implementation Plans

And How to Do It: Feedback and Lessons from 5 West African Countries


CIP Technical Working Group members from Burkina Faso. Image Credit: Aïssatou Thioye (Knowledge SUCCESS).

Diverse family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) program stakeholders, from Ministry of Health officials to representatives of civil society organizations and youth organizations, are championing the strategic integration of knowledge management (KM) into their programs to advance FP/RH outcomes in their countries.  

Findings from a recent assessment conducted by Knowledge SUCCESS of KM integration into Costed Implementation Plans (CIPs) in five West African countries—Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Senegal, and Togo—revealed the multifaceted ways KM contributes to stronger FP/RH outcomes and more efficient use of limited resources including:  

  • Coordinating stakeholders and their activities to avoid duplication of effort 
  • Facilitating collaboration and the sharing of information within and between organizations to maximize effective programs 
  • Taking stock of what’s working and identifying solutions to address challenges 
  • Documenting the “what” and the “how” of programs to ensure the FP/RH field is learning as they are doing and evolving as needs change and new challenges arise. 

For example, an FP/RH stakeholder from Côte d’Ivoire explained KM’s critical role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by helping programs learn from their experiences and find solutions to fill gaps in knowledge:   

… What do we know, what do we need to improve and what are the challenges? And then find solutions, because we won’t be able to achieve all the SRHR [sexual and reproductive health and rights] objectives we’ve set for the SDGs, even by 2030.

Another stakeholder from Burkina Faso emphasized the importance of KM in facilitating this knowledge sharing and learning across programs, organizations, and even sectors:  

How do we capitalize on what we’ve learned? And how do we use this in other programs? … knowledge management is a process that actually enables capitalized results to be used. One program’s current results, therefore, can have an impact on the other program. … it’s not even a question of health anymore, it’s a question of development … 

Common FP/RH Program Challenges and KM Solutions 

Between 2021 and 2023, Knowledge SUCCESS collaborated with West Africa Breakthrough ACTION (WABA), Health Policy Plus (HP+), and other CIP working group members to integrate KM into five West African countries’ family planning CIPs. CIPs are multi-year actionable roadmaps, referred to in French as plan d’action national budgétisé de planification familiale (budgeted national family planning action plans), designed to support governments in achieving their FP/RH goals. 

As these stakeholders began to formulate their roadmaps, they recognized that KM could help solve certain barriers to advancing FP/RH outcomes. Some of these barriers included lack of awareness among program stakeholders of FP/RH legislative policies and regulations due to weak availability, dissemination, and promotion; duplication of effort and wasted resources stemming from insufficient coordination between FP/RH programs and donors; and challenges with scaling up best practices because platforms weren’t readily available to share information with each other.  

In the five countries, the CIP working groups intentionally included KM initiatives in their CIPs—alongside social and behavior change (SBC), supply chain, service delivery, enabling environment, and monitoring and evaluation interventions—to help solve these problems. Common KM initiatives included in the CIPs, according to our analysis of the five countries’ CIPs, consisted of: 

  • Developing a functional platform to share information, accessible to all stakeholders 
  • Forming thematic groups on FP/RH topics or revitalizing FP/RH committees 
  • Documenting experiences, best practices, and lessons learned 
  • Developing and disseminating feedback bulletins 
  • Organizing national meetings to share program lessons and evidence 

Of course, we know it’s common to experience challenges with executing a plan, and challenges with executing CIPs—however relevant and useful they are—are no exception. Although some countries were still in the final stages of finalizing their CIP or had only recently begun to execute their CIP at the time of our assessment, some of the stakeholders did point to the implementation of specific KM activities that were included in their CIP. For example:  

  • In Senegal, the Ministry of Health’s Department of Maternal and Child Health recently hired a KM specialist in its goal to institutionalize knowledge management. The KM specialist has already conducted an information audit and is planning to produce a KM strategy in collaboration with all the key partners, as well as KM training for all department staff. 
  • In Niger, stakeholders were currently establishing a community of practice focused on youth and climate change to share experiences and approaches across programs, and partners document interventions and regularly write and publish articles to help promote best practices.  
  • In Côte d’Ivoire, respondents were aware that country stakeholders were coordinating their activities for a World Contraception Day event.

How to Integrate KM Into National Strategies and Action Plans  

CIPs and other types of national strategies or action plans are important planning tools because they help countries identify the best ways to achieve their family planning or other health goals and objectives.  Integrating KM interventions into CIPs and other national strategies is crucial to avoid inefficiencies and duplication of effort in programs, better coordinate resources across stakeholders and institutions, and ensure programs are learning as they are doing—and applying that learning for more effective programming and better FP/RH outcomes.  

Based on the findings of our assessment, we propose the following recommendations to facilitate the integration of KM into country CIPs and strategies:

Identify potential KM champions who can advocate for the inclusion of KM in the CIP to help achieve a country’s FP/RH objectives.   

Conduct an analysis of KM inclusion in the previous CIP to identify areas of strength and potential gaps. Inspired by Breakthrough Action’s useful SBC Checklist to Develop and Assess Costed Implementation Plans for Demand Creation, Knowledge SUCCESS is currently developing a checklist to help countries assess their KM needs and better integrate KM into their CIPs.  

Hover Box Element

Hover Box Element

Stay tuned for updates on the finalization of the checklist.

Replicate and reinforce Knowledge SUCCESS’s interactive KM workshop model to help country stakeholders better understand KM’s role in FP/RH programs. In all five West African countries, CIP working group members who participated in the KM workshops said the interactive workshop activities helped them identify the country’s primary KM challenges and select suitable KM strategies and activities while building on the KM activities that the country was already doing. 

Support countries during the execution of CIPs, particularly related to capacity strengthening and resource mobilization for KM to help ensure the CIP approach translates into sustainable impact. 

As donor government funding for family planning drops or, at best, remains stagnant, it becomes even more important for FP/RH programs to use these finite resources more efficiently. KM benefits programs and organizations by helping them make better and faster decisions, solve problems, avoid redundancies and repeating costly mistakes, communicate best practices and lessons learned widely and quickly, and stimulate innovation and growth. Integrating KM into national strategy documents and plans is a smart investment for donors, governments, and organizations alike to achieve their health and development goals.  

Learn more about the assessment:

Ruwaida Salem

Senior Program Officer, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Ruwaida Salem, Senior Program Officer at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, has nearly 20 years of experience in the global health field. As team lead for knowledge solutions and lead author of Building Better Programs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Knowledge Management in Global Health, she designs, implements, and manages knowledge management programs to improve access to and use of critical health information among health professionals around the world. She holds a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from the University of Akron, and a Graduate Certificate in User Experience Design from Kent State University.

Tara Sullivan

Project Director, Knowledge SUCCESS, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Dr. Tara M Sullivan, Director, Knowledge Management and Knowledge SUCCESS Tara M. Sullivan, Ph.D., MPH, leads the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs' knowledge management unit, is the project director for Knowledge SUCCESS, and teaches in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has worked for more than 20 years in international health with a focus on program evaluation, knowledge management (KM), quality of care, and family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH). Tara has bridged a knowledge gap in the field of KM by developing frameworks and guides for KM program design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation, and by exploring the contribution that KM makes to strengthening health systems and improving health outcomes. Her research has examined knowledge needs at multiple levels of the health system, and has investigated how social factors (social capital, social networks, social learning) contribute to knowledge-sharing outcomes. Tara also has researched factors that influence the provision of quality of care in global FP/RH programs. She has lived and worked in Botswana and Thailand and holds degrees from Cornell University (BS) and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (Ph.D., MPH).

Aïssatou Thioye

West Africa Knowledge Management and Partnerships Officer, Knowledge SUCCESS, FHI 360

Aïssatou Thioye est dans la division de l'utilisation de la recherche, au sein du GHPN de FHI360 et travaille pour le projet Knowledge SUCCESS en tant que Responsable de la Gestion des Connaissances et du Partenariat pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Dans son rôle, elle appuie le renforcement de la gestion des connaissances dans la région, l’établissement des priorités et la conception de stratégies de gestion des connaissances aux groupes de travail techniques et partenaires de la PF/SR en Afrique de l’Ouest. Elle assure également la liaison avec les partenaires et les réseaux régionaux. Par rapport à son expérience, Aïssatou a travaillé pendant plus de 10 ans comme journaliste presse, rédactrice-consultante pendant deux ans, avant de rejoindre JSI où elle a travaillé dans deux projets d’Agriculture et de Nutrition, successivement comme mass-media officer puis spécialiste de la Gestion des Connaissances.******Aïssatou Thioye is in the Research Utilization Division of the GHPN of FHI 360 and works for the Knowledge SUCCESS project as the Knowledge Management and Partnership Officer for West Africa. In her role, she supports the strengthening of knowledge management in the region, setting priorities and designing knowledge management strategies at the FP/RH technical and partner working groups in West Africa. She also liaises with regional partners and networks. In relation to her experience, Aïssatou worked for more than 10 years as a press journalist, then as an editor-consultant for two years, before joining JSI where she worked on two Agriculture and Nutrition projects, successively as a mass-media officer and then as a Knowledge Management specialist.

Najmeh Modarres

Global Health and Development Professional

Najmeh Modarres is a dedicated global health and development professional with over 15 years of experience, specializing in global health research and program management. Her background includes managing complex public health projects and synthesizing data into actionable insights for decision-making in challenging settings. Her technical expertise spans social and behavior change communication, knowledge management, emerging infectious and neglected diseases, family planning and reproductive health, safe motherhood and child health, capacity strengthening, and community mobilization. From 2019 to 2024, she spearheaded the global monitoring, evaluation, and learning efforts for the Knowledge SUCCESS project. Najmeh is deeply committed to feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial approaches, fostering inclusive and collaborative environments through compassionate interpersonal and intercultural communication. She holds a Master of Public Health with a specialization in Global Maternal and Child Health from Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.