Our Power of Ten strategy

Everywhere we work, Marie Stopes International aspires to reach underserved women and couples with voluntary family planning and safe abortion services. Our clients are the focus of our reproductive health centres, our outreach teams and BlueStar franchisees. We measure our long term success in terms of our ability to serve them. Many aspects of our work will change going forward, but one will not: the client remains central to everything we do.

Despite a recent decline in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy-related causes, progress on Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG5) to improve maternal health has been slow. Our Power of Ten strategy aims to make the biggest contribution possible to achieving the MDG5 targets – reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio and universal access to reproductive health – by 2015.

We recognise that we are one of many organisations working to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. We have much to learn from and much to offer others. Therefore, a key element in the Power of Ten strategy is forging enduring connections with governments and other key organisations who influence policy, funding, and practice for family planning and safe abortion at the country level and globally.

Through these partnerships, the Power of Ten will position our programmes within overall health systems, aligning our programmatic strategies with host government and donor priorities while maintaining our rigorous focus on results.

Why are we adopting a new strategy?
To advance our mission of "children by choice, not chance" and to meet the needs of the 200 million women worldwide who lack access to quality family planning services, we must accelerate our impact in family planning and safe abortion programming globally.

This is the primary objective of our Power of Ten strategy. It builds on our success in achieving many of the goals of our 2006-2010 plan while seeking to address areas where we fell short. It responds to fundamental changes in our services and how we deliver them – such as increased service delivery outside our centres and the advent of medical abortion – and prepares us for the long term impact of these changes on our business model.

Who was involved in developing the strategy?
The Power of Ten strategy emerged from a rigorous and inclusive process. More than 700 team members, Board members and external stakeholders from around the world provided data and input. A Steering Committee comprised of senior staff from our country programmes and support offices shaped the final strategy proposal for approval by our Board of Directors.

What are we going to accomplish?
Our strategy sets ambitious five year goals in terms of health impact, organisational capacity building and expanded resources. The strategy includes an aggressive growth target in couple years of protection (CYP1): 10 million more CYPs annually by 2015. This is balanced by a ‘family of goals’ to measure our broader health impact, encourage access to medical abortion (so more women have access to safe options) and to strengthen us institutionally.

It builds on our success in achieving many of the goals of our 2006-2010 plan while seeking to address areas where we fell short. It responds to fundamental changes in our services and how we deliver them.

Also, and for the first time, our strategy sets mission-level goals. These goals capture the larger aspirations to which our work contributes, and are what we will ultimately measure our work against. They are also the goals that will inspire our partnerships with others.

These goals are:

• a 10 point increase in country level contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) for 20 key countries
• 10 million fewer unsafe abortions globally by 2015.

How will we deliver results?
The plan focuses on three broad strategies for achieving our ambitious health goals.

First , we will dramatically expand the choices and channels available to our clients, in particular harnessing the potential of long-acting and permanent contraceptive methods and medical abortion, in order to deliver services as close to our clients as possible.

Second , we will build our institutional capacity – systems, standards, and people – to improve our effectiveness and efficiency across the board.

And third , we will forge enduring connections with governments and other institutions that influence policy, funding and practice for family planning, both at the country level and globally.