Strengthen and disaggregate data
Strengthen and disaggregate data to assess barriers, identify opportunities and improve financial tracking, using tools to generate, analyse and apply evidence in advocacy
The key to strengthening programmes, improving access to quality services and tackling inequities is robust, reliable and up-to-date disaggregated data. Strengthened national and subnational capacity by governments and multisectoral actors to use and analyse quality disaggregated data, and improve reliability of global and national data for decision-making and accountability is central to inform the development of family planning policies and programmes. UNFPA will work with countries and a wide range of partners both within and beyond the United Nations system to strengthen data collection, analysis and dissemination, focusing on investments that support the advancement of strategic priorities to reduce systemic inequities and maximize impact.
PRIORITY ACTION 4.1: Expand information systems and mechanisms at the national and subnational level in order to capture relevant disaggregated data with a focus on inequities and marginalized groups.
Programmatic options
4.1.1 Information systems: Advocate for and support further development of national HMIS, LMIS and community management information system (CMIS), integrating key family planning indicators that are disaggregated and capture subnational information into routinely collected data, including real-time data mechanisms, e.g. Rapid SMS and RapidPro.
4.1.2 Surveys: Support population-based health surveys, ensuring that family planning indicators and disaggregated fertility data is included in censuses, Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS) among other health and population data collection instruments.
4.1.3 Data collaboration: Promote collaboration between government and the private/non-governmental sector to incentivize collection, consolidation and utilization of quality up-to-date family planning data and research for evidence generation.
4.1.4 Evaluations: Conduct country-level evaluations of family planning programmes and contribute to Common Country Analysis (CCA) during development of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSCDF).
4.1.5 Data quality assurance: Strengthen data quality assurance mechanisms at all levels that measure data quality by completeness, timeliness and consistency.
4.1.6 Data capacity: Strengthen capacity of relevant institutions to generate and use different types of data and evidence (e.g. health facilities and population-based surveys, modelled estimates, census) for planning, monitoring, decision-making and mutlisectoral advocacy for family planning and at different levels of engagement from service provision to policy making.
PRIORITY ACTION 4.2: Improve data analysis, visualization and dissemination
Programmatic options
4.2.1 Equity-focused data: Provide technical assistance for the dissemination and visibility of disaggregated and geo-referenced equity-focused data at national and subnational levels, supporting data analysis to address systemic bottlenecks and inequities among population groups.
4.2.2 Databases and dashboards: Assist governments in accessing and using available population databases and dashboards from different data sources at country, regional and global levels including the UNFPA Population Data Portal, UNDESA Population Data estimates for contraception, the Track 20/FP2030 country data portal, and the UNFPA country opportunity briefs for family planning.
4.2.3 Integrate data: Strengthen capacity to integrate data sources (and data triangulation) from health facilities, HMIS, LMIS, modeled estimates and population data from census to map availability and access to family planning services and visualize data towards delivery to the last mile.
4.2.4 Good practices: Improve capacity to document and share good practices on family planning implementation and different programming options, including through the development of advocacy and policy briefs, based on recent and updated evidence generated from primary data or secondary analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.
4.2.5 Digital transformation: Advocate for digital transformation in government, including inter-operable digital health information systems and tools, emphasizing the need to invest in data visualization and dissemination platforms to support all areas of monitoring and planning, e.g. for supply chain management and partners engagement.
4.2.6 Data partnerships: Strengthen public private partnership with universities, specialized organizations and other entities for data generation, analysis and use and for development of software for data visualization.
4.2.7 Global FPVAN: Collaborate with reproductive health partners and promote use of the Global Family Planning Visibility and Analytics Network as a one-stop platform for information sharing and end-to-end visibility of contraceptive procurement and supply chain data.
PRIORITY ACTION 4.3 Advocate for and support the development and implementation of accountability mechanisms at global, national and subnational level to improve adherence to policies, frameworks and quality family planning services
Programmatic options
4.3.1 Monitor commitments: Facilitate the formation and functioning of monitoring and surveillance systems and media working groups to act as a watchdog to monitor the implementation of national and global commitments, including adherence to human rights and “leave no one behind” principles, among Parliamentarians, civil society organizations and communities.
4.3.2 Private sector QA: Advocate for and support the development and establishment of quality assurance and regulatory frameworks for family planning services and products delivered through the private sector.
4.3.3 Audits: Establish mechanisms for routine data quality audits and corrective action to ensure HMIS and LMIS data are timely, accurate and complete.
The interventions under "Strengthen and disaggregate data" contribute to the UNFPA strategic plan output “population change and data”.
Acceleration Plan Output 4: Robust data and evidence are available and used to inform policy and programme decisions and measure impact
The strategic plan refers to strengthening data systems and evidence to take into account population changes and other megatrends in development policies and programmes. The acceleration plan focuses on family planning data: “Robust data and evidence are available and used to inform policy and programme decisions and measure impact.”
RESOURCE: Relevant text from the family planning strategy
Good data transformed into actionable evidence will be used by UNFPA in myriad ways to advance decision-making that furthers family planning. UNFPA will continue to strengthen data generation, visualization and dissemination, working with countries and a wide range of partners both within and beyond the United Nations system. For family planning, UNFPA reports on SDG 3.7.1: Proportion of women of reproductive age who have their need for family planning satisfied with modern methods, among other measures (table 5).
Through the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, UNFPA will assure increased data visibility for country investments into family planning, and support more strategic investing by a wider range of existing and new partners. UNFPA willcontinue to support the availability of key data sources such as Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and conduct Population Situation Analysis (PSA) to promote multisectoral approaches for addressing family planning. Increasingly, UNFPA will utilize population and housing census data, and model-based population estimates, to analyse geographic access to family planning, to better identify those with unmet need, and to better distinguish situations of low access, low demand or both. UNFPA will use innovative approaches to assess the barriers to family planning service uptake by combining population data with facility data, such as those from UNFPA Health Facility Surveys for reproductive health commodities and services. UNFPA will use its georeferenced Population Data Portal (PDP) for core population and family planning indicators. The PDP provides easy-to-use interfaces to manage, visualize and analyse data sets that will make them more broadly accessible.
At the global level, UNFPA will leverage its work on population data to improve forecasting accuracy and hence efficiency of contraceptive procurement and equitable distribution. It will continue to be a lead partner in the Global Family Planning Visibility and Analytics Network (GFPVAN),52 a platform for sharing data about inventories and shipments of commodities.
Disaggregated data are essential. As one of the leading research collaborators in the field of family planning, UNFPA will continue generating evidence for areas where research gaps are identified using population data, with an emphasis on those with programmatic impact. Potential areas include contraceptive method mix studies including among adolescents, the causes of method switching and discontinuation, impact of introducing a new method on other existing methods, and distinguishing where low use of family planning reflects low access, low demand or both. In each of these areas data will be disaggregated to ensure information is available on specific categories of users for support interventions aimed at reaching those furthest behind.
Regarding data in humanitarian settings, UNFPA will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and others to strengthen the availability of disaggregated data throughout the preparedness, response and recovery phases of a crisis. This will strengthen forecasting and quantification exercises for crisis-affected areas, for example, and count and characterize populations in need of family planning services.
To strengthen accountability, UNFPA relies on quality data. UNFPA will continue to publish relevant data as an important tool for holding UNFPA and its partners accountable for progress towards organizational and global sexual and reproductive health goals. Accountability efforts are carried out in partnership with other United Nations agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) International Labour Organization and others. This includes, for example, support to governments for routine monitoring data for family planning services and logistics data on contraceptives distribution, informing ongoing collaboration with WHO to support countries to strengthen health and logistics management information systems (HMIS and LMIS).