World development

Sexual and Reproductive Health / Family Planning (SRH)

TWF believes that all individuals should be able to enjoy good sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as it enables women to minimise the chance of having an unwanted or mistimed pregnancy. This in turn supports girls and women to stay in education longer, seek paid employment, and reduces the maternal and new-born mortality associated with adolescent or closely spaced pregnancies.

However, in many low-income countries there is substantial unmet need for contraception, particularly among adolescents and other underserved populations. Some of this is due to access (distance, cost and stockouts at access points). This unmet need is also caused by a significant gap in supporting women (and men) to critically think through their SRH needs and develop a truly informed decision on contraception use (and what type); and correspondingly, to develop a sense of SRH self-efficacy (an individual's belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviours necessary to achieve their goals) to action this informed decision. As such, TWF prioritises supporting truly financially sustainable solutions to SRH services access gaps (to quality care) and enabling routine SRH discussions to develop true SRH self-efficacy given that SRH needs and desired contraception type can change as people go through different stages of life.

TWF’s current SRH funding strategy: We are prioritising support that fills gaps in regard to improving access to and use of a range of modern contraceptive methods and wider sexual health and reproductive services. In practice, this has resulted in a three-pillar approach to our support, developed via a review of current literature and in discussion with long-time SRH professionals:

• In-country financing improvement – This largely includes supporting advocacy and accountability for increased funds to be allocated to SRH by district or national governments; improving the commercial sector’s role in SRH; or NGOs / CBOs developing non-philanthropic income generation mechanisms.
  
• Improving the reach of successful, evidence-based financially sustainable SRH initiatives – With this pillar, we are focused on supporting groups to invest in ways to scale their success beyond direct replication of their model. An example of this is the support of complementary partnerships (such as enabling more established groups that have a strong and wide-ranging presence in one or several countries to test and incorporate a new evidence-based model developed by a smaller organisation). A particular focus on scaling financially sustainable models that address a combination of the following will be prioritised: Community-level created SRH demand, mass media or school created SRH demand, improved access to modern contraception, and the development of youth friendly SRH facilities at health centres.
• In-country capacity building – Potentially, this could include initiatives such as building community-based organisations’ systems to support long-term organisational and implementation success; or developing new ways to finance and effectively sustain community health worker and extension services.

Application Eligibility: 

We receive many more funding applications than we are able to support. We are therefore only able to consider support for applications that meet all three of these requirements:

• Clearly fit with the descriptions of what we will, and what we will not support;
• Use the flow chart below and meet the eligibility criteria for a Small or Main Grant;
• Follow the relevant Application Guidelines including the FAQ section.

Eligibility for a Main Grant	Eligibility for a Small Grant
UK and overseas organisations with a UK-based reference	UK-based organisations only
Requesting over £25,000 in the field of: SRH/Family Planning	Requesting under £10,000 in the field of: SRH/Family Planning
Have an annual income of at least £300,000	Have an income of below £300,000
Deliver development programmes at a district, regional or national scale	Deliver work at a local scale - for example supporting just one or a small number of communities, schools or groups
Have experience in delivering multi-year programmes guided by multi-year strategic plans	Tend to plan and deliver work over a one to two year time frame
Can demonstrate a strong track record of delivering long-term impact	Can demonstrate successful project delivery and the ability to monitor project outputs and outcomes
Have waited at least 24 months since last unsuccessful application	Have waited at least 24 months since last unsuccessful application
World Development Main Grant SRH Application Guidelines	World Development Small Grant SRH Application Guidelines