EnCompass is the gender partner on the USAID Transform: Primary Health Care project in Ethiopia. Led by Pathfinder International, the project is supporting the Government of Ethiopia’s implementation of its Health Sector Transformation Plan, with the ultimate goal of preventing child and maternal deaths. Project activities are contributing to stronger management and performance of Ethiopia’s public health system with a focus on maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition; family planning and reproductive health; and malaria in Ethiopia’s four major regions—Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region.

Gender equality is a cross-cutting priority and an integral component of the project’s four result areas:

1. Improved management and performance of health systems
2. Increased sustainable quality of service delivery across the primary health care level continuum of care
3. Improved household and community health practices and health-seeking behaviors
4. Enhanced program learning to impact policy and programming related to preventing maternal and child deaths

With a field office and multiple in-country staff, EnCompass is leading a gender-transformative approach that includes a critical examination of gender norms and dynamics, strengthening of capacities and systems to be gender responsive, and strategic engagements to challenge and change inequitable gender norms and behaviors related to health. For example, our clinical skills training activity for health services providers has increased the availability and the quality of services for sexual violence survivors at different levels of health care delivery. We are also orienting health extension workers on the importance of engaging men as supportive partners for improved reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health.

In 2019, our senior gender advisor for this project contributed to the Ethiopian position paper for the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and is part of the Ethiopian delegation to the session, contributing to high-level discussions and action planning for social protections for women in Ethiopia and globally.

The Transform: Primary Health Care project is part of a $181 million USAID investment to address preventable maternal and child deaths in Ethiopia.

Related Resources

• USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project brochure
• USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project Gender Analysis
• USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project GBV Landscape Analysis
• USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project GBV Infographic
• USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project Successes From a Collaborative and Iterative Process for Gender Integration
• Gender Strategy for the USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Project
• Women’s Economic Empowerment and Community-based Health Insurance: Lessons from Ethiopia
• Transform: Primary Health Care Gender Assessment
• Increasing Accessibility of Post-Gender-Based Violence Services through Primary Health Care in Ethiopia: Technical Brief
• Expanding Access to Daycare Centers for Women in the Health Workforce in Ethiopia: Lessons Learned from the USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Activity
• Operationalizing Gender Analysis and Action Planning Across Ethiopia’s Primary Health Care System: A Process Guide and Lessons Learned from The USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Activity

Photo c/o USAID/Ethiopia via Creative Commons