Success Story

Integrating Gender and the Environment: NPI EXPAND Kenya Cocreation Workshop

March 29, 2022

The co-creation workshop for NPI EXPAND Kenya was held March 15th through 18th, 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop brought together 15 members of the Narok County Health management Team (CHMT), senior leadership of the Narok health department, five local NGOs that are potential grantees, Masai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA), Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF), and GIZ. In addition, teams from USAID’s Health and Environment Bureaus attended and gave their contributions.

The facilitation process used the Keystone approach (PSI’s Keystone Design Framework). This approach seeks to first identify problems and challenges through a situation analysis, then decide the most pressing needs. This is followed by identifying and designing the priority strategic interventions and then defining the key activities that would help to achieve the desired results. The workshop aimed to identify key barriers impeding family planning and maternal health uptake in Narok County, co-creating context-specific and gender-integrated concepts to be developed into interventions for increasing uptake of FP/MH services. Additionally, the workshop provided insights on how NPI EXPAND Kenya’s approach will adapt programming through gender and environmental integration and mainstreaming.

The NPI EXPAND team in Kenya shared the project overview, the capacity building as well as the gender mainstreaming and integration approaches that will guide the implementation of the project. The key takeaway from co-creation was the articulation of a project approach that places emphasis on community health and uses a multi-sectoral approach to address family planning and maternal health issues. As the County Director of Health stated, “health begins and ends at the community”. The workshop participants also appreciated the importance of sharing data to inform programming, the use of intergenerational and gender-aware approaches, and the use of innovative communication methods that target both literate and illiterate populations. Following this successful co-creation workshop, a request for applications will be sent out to the participating NGOs for their response. Successful organizations to receive grants will undergo a baseline capacity assessment and due diligence before they are granted to implement their activities. Implementation of project activities is anticipated to commence in July 2022.

Take a look at some photos from the event below!

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