Strengthening social and behavior change monitoring and evaluation for family planning in francophone West Africa

Francophone West Africa has the highest fertility rates in the world and low contraceptive prevalence. In reponse, the Ouagadougou Partnership was established to encourage family planning (FP), but efforts have focused on service delivery and commodity procurement with fewer investments in demand creation through social and behavior change (SBC) approaches. A recent study found that in countries with a high desired ideal number of children, FP progress is limited without investing in efforts to increase demand. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that SBC can directly increase contraceptive use by addressing intermediate outcomes such as attitudes, social norms, self-efficacy, and partner communication that influence contraceptive use