FRONTIERS capacity building: An overview

The Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program is a cooperative agreement with USAID to improve family planning and reproductive health service delivery through operations research (OR). Frontiers builds on more than 20 years of research to improve family planning service delivery programs. A major goal of Frontiers is to transfer skills in OR so that public and private agencies in developing countries can conduct OR and apply research findings to reproductive health programs and policies. OR addresses problems in operational effectiveness, access, quality, and efficiency by investigating facets of programs that managers can control and change. As concluded in this overview report, Frontiers seeks to institutionalize capacity building by increasing the number of service delivery organizations that use OR and increasing the number of research organizations capable of conducting and teaching OR. Investment in capacity building will ensure that OR will make a continuing, significant contribution to reproductive health and family planning programs and policies