Family Planning Data Collaboration Advances DHIS 2 for Improved Program Data

DHAKA, Bangladesh—As Bangladesh moves further toward digital health information management, it is realizing more of its capacity to generate, analyze, and use high-quality data for planning and decision making. A case in point in April 2019 was a signing ceremony formalizing the collaboration among the Bangladesh Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and two implementing partners funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—MEASURE Evaluation and MaMoni Maternal and Newborn Care Strengthening Project (MNCSP) implemented by Save the Children/Bangladesh.

The collaboration among eMIS stakeholders aims to improve the availability of high-quality family planning program data through DHIS 2 for evidence-based decision making and to strengthen the capacity to track the progress of relevant indicators of the 4th Health, Population, Nutrition Sector Program (4th HPNSP) covering facility data and data from family planning worker visits to communities for the dispensing and use of modern contraceptive methods for the population.

DHIS 2 replaces the current service statistics software used by the DGFP and is expected to be rolled out to 40 districts by June 2020 and to all 64 districts of Bangladesh by June 2022.

USAID’s eMIS partners—MEASURE Evaluation icddr,b, and MNCSP—will assist DGFP to integrate the data reporting into the DHIS 2 health information platform, either from the eMIS or directly entered into DHIS 2, and will train staff through cascade trainings.

The signing ceremony included a presentation by the MEASURE Evaluation team on DHIS 2, followed by the signing of the LOC by Dr. Kazi Mostafa Sarwar, Director General, DGFP; Dr. Sathyanarayanan Doraiswamy, Chief of Health, UNFPA Bangladesh, and Md. Humayun Kabir, on behalf of USAID’s eMIS partners in Dhaka. Others present included Mr. Monoj Kumar Roy, Line Director/MIS, DGFP, Dr. Iftekhar Rashid, Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) Team Lead, USAID/Bangladesh, representatives from MaMoni MNCSP, icddrb, and other staff members of DGFP, USAID, UNFPA, and MEASURE Evaluation.

For more information, please contact measure@unc.edu or visit www.measureevaluation.org/countries/bangladesh.