Task sharing for family planning services, Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, the coverage of services for family planning is low due to shortage of qualified health staff and limited access to services.

Following the launch of the Ouagadougou Partnership, an alliance to catalyse the expansion of family planning services, the health ministry created a consortium of family planning stakeholders in 2011. The consortium adopted a collaborative framework to implement a pilot project for task sharing in family planning at community and primary health-care centre levels in two rural districts. Stakeholders were responsible for their areas of expertise. These areas included advocacy; monitoring and evaluation; and capacity development of community health workers (CHWs) to offer oral and injectable contraceptives to new users and of auxiliary nurses and auxiliary midwives to provide implants and intrauterine devices. The health ministry implemented supportive supervision cascades involving relevant planning and service levels.

In Burkina Faso, only 15% (2563/17 087) of married women used modern contraceptives in 2010.

Adoption of new policies and clinical care standards expanded task sharing roles in family planning. The consortium trained a total of 79 CHWs and 124 auxiliary nurses and midwives. Between January 2017 and December 2018, CHWs provided injectables to 3698 new users, and auxiliary nurses or midwives provided 726 intrauterine devices and 2574 implants to new users. No safety issues were reported.

The pilot project was feasible and safe, however, financial constraints are hindering scale-up efforts. Supportive supervision cascades were critical in ensuring success.