Social franchising

For women in Asian and Latin American countries, the private health sector provides more than 50% of all contraceptives. In African countries, the majority of women are spending an increasing proportion of their resources on private health care.

Marie Stopes International uses social franchising to expand access to high quality sexual and reproductive health services through existing private sector providers. Marie Stopes International identifies providers who want to upgrade their skills and trains these providers in state-of-the art service delivery and international quality standards. It then certifies them as members of the franchised network and regularly monitors them to ensure that quality standards are being maintained.

Marie Stopes International’s “AMUA” franchise in Kenya comprises over 140 providers and based on lessons learnt from this pilot programme, Marie Stopes International is now establishing new social franchise networks under the brand - BlueStar - in Ethiopia, Ghana, Viet Nam and the Philippines in 2007. Other countries including Sierra Leone will follow in 2008 and by 2010, a further 5 countries. The total number of existing private providers franchised to deliver core MSI services will be between 3000 – 5000. The BlueStar brand will be widely promoted to help clients identify quality service providers and to motivate them to seek and use services provided by the network.

To find out more about the programmes where Marie Stopes International has social franchising networks, please select a country from the drop down list on the right.