This learning brief outlines how the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme increased visibility of the family planning budget in Malawi and helped to raise domestic funding for family planning commodities

The brief describes how the WISH2ACTION programme in Malawi played an important and catalytic role in the Government’s decision to raise its allocation to the family planning commodity budget line in financial year 2020/21. It achieved this through:

• Analysis: synthesising existing analysis and undertaking new analysis, and developing the capacity and skills of WISH advocacy partner MANASO to use the information effectively
• Advocacy: tailoring the analysis to the needs of target audiences and identification of advocacy opportunities to ensure family planning financing remained in the public eye at crucial points during government discussions and budget negotiations.
• Coordination: coordinating a group of key FP/SRHR partners to ‘speak with one voice’
• Building momentum: activities progressively built understanding among key influencers and decisionmakers on the challenges faced by young people in meeting their reproductive health needs, as well as by the country in meeting its FP/sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) commitments
• A flexible, health systems approach: the flexible WISH framework and approach enabled the WISH Malawi team to take advantage of opportunities as they arose and to mobilise quickly when needed, thanks to a strong foundation of evidence-based analysis and relationship building with key FP/SRHR partners during 2019 and 2020

Read the full learning brief here.