Guide for Assessing the Impact of a Total Market Approach to Family Planning Programs

Author(s): Dominique Meekers, Sarah C. Haynes

Year: 2019

Abstract:

A Total Market Approach (TMA) is an approach to coordinating family planning (FP) services among health planners and facilities, commodity suppliers, and funders from governmental, commercial, and private or nongovernmental sectors. With a TMA, these sectors work together to increase the market for and the availability of FP services and methods. Despite the growing popularity of TMA, the development of TMA strategies and their implementation are still in their infancy. As yet, there are no studies or agreed-upon approaches to assess the medium- and long-term impact of TMA on FP outcomes. This guide will describe a step-by-step approach for evaluating the impact of FP programs that are TMA-based. As such, it is complementary to earlier guides for designing and monitoring TMA programs. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded MEASURE Evaluation project produced this guide to help TMA implementers to properly plan for evaluations of the medium- to long-term impact of their TMA programs, which will also enable them to contribute to the evidence base on the impact of TMA programs.

The objectives of this guide are fourfold: (1) to compare definitions of TMA currently being used by implementing organizations; (2) to identify objectives and components of current or past TMA implementations for FP; (3) to outline methods for an impact evaluation of TMA programs; and (4) to demonstrate how a TMA might be evaluated for impact using an example from Cambodia. To achieve these objectives, we conducted a systematic review of current and past implementations of TMA programs. To supplement the findings of this review, we followed up with authors and conducted key informant interviews with implementers and supporters of TMA projects.