Major achievements

Here are just a few of Marie Stopes International’s major achievements worldwide:

• delivering high quality services and information to more than 42 million people worldwide since being set up in 1976
• constantly innovating - Marie Stopes International has pioneered the way abortion and sterilisation services are provided; one recent innovation is the delivery of medical abortion (the abortion pill) through social marketing and rural outreach. The wide availability of medical abortion will enable Marie Stopes International to minimise the number of (largely rural) women who currently resort to unsafe methods because safe services are beyond their reach
• being contracted by governments in India, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, the UK, South Africa, and Tanzania to provide sexual and reproductive health services on their behalf – for example, in Malawi, Marie Stopes International provides 31% of all family planning services in the country
• establishing and maintaining high quality services - Marie Stopes International service providers are highly skilled and trained and are guided by protocols refined by more than 30 years experience. So, regardless of where in the world a client is seen, they receive the same high standard of care
• strengthening health systems through a range of partnerships with others – from governments and the private sector, through to other NGOs and academic institutions. For example, KfW Entwicklungsbank has invested €10 million to expand a pilot scheme in Kenya where people with a low income are given vouchers which they can use for services in either in clinics and via outreach
• going where few others will go in order to guarantee access to essential services. For example, in Bangladesh, faced with seasonal water rises, Marie Stopes International teams take to motorboats in order to continue to provide services to communities often cut off for six months at a time
• paramedicalising services – by giving nurses, midwives, clinical officers and other providers comprehensive training to carry out specific procedures, Marie Stopes International is able to reduce demands on doctors and significantly extend clients’ access to high quality services
• being appointed the joint lead agency of a five year, multi-agency, multi-country programme which brings together leading service delivery and advocacy partners to catalyse change in sexual and reproductive health service provision for refugees and internally displaced people

To find out more about Marie Stopes International’s other achievements, please take a look around the website.