Implementing fertility care: Insights from a participatory workshop in The Gambia

Journal article

Afferri, A., Dierickx, Susan, Bittaye, Mustapha, Marena, Musa, Ceesay, Sainey M, Bittaye, Haddy, Pacey, Allan Antony and Balen, Julie 2024. Implementing fertility care: Insights from a participatory workshop in The Gambia. Reproduction and Fertility. https://doi.org/10.1530/raf-24-0029
AuthorsAfferri, A., Dierickx, Susan, Bittaye, Mustapha, Marena, Musa, Ceesay, Sainey M, Bittaye, Haddy, Pacey, Allan Antony and Balen, Julie
AbstractIntroduction: The Gambia, West Africa, has made recent progress on infertility, a component of sexual and reproductive health that is lagging behind others. Since 2016, there is favourable policy environment stemming from infertility research and partnership building with national stakeholders and local civil society organisations focussing on infertility. Here, we report outcomes from a participatory workshop on infertility policy implementation in The Gambia and provide insights on setting national priorities for fertility care in resource-limited settings. Methods: We conducted a participatory workshop involving 29 participants from Gambia’s public and private health sectors. Using selected participatory group work tools, stakeholders identified and prioritised key activities within the framework of five pre-defined areas of action, including (i) creating guidelines/regulations; (ii) recording/reporting data; (iii) building public-private partnership; (iv) training health providers; and (v) raising awareness and health-seeking. Results: 17 prioritised activities were proposed across the five action areas, according to short- medium- and long-term timeframes. Three were further prioritised from the overall pool, through group consensus. A Group Model Building activity helped to envision the complexity through elucidating links, loops, and connections between each activity and their expected outcomes. Conclusions: The participatory workshop identified actionable interventions for fertility care in The Gambia, with stakeholders setting a clear path ahead. Despite challenges, the continued engagement of Gambian policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and activists in efforts to move beyond policy creation to its implementation is essential. Improving fertility care in The Gambia and other LMICs is feasible with effective collaboration and financial support.
KeywordsFertility; The Gambia
Year2024
JournalReproduction and Fertility
PublisherBioScientifica
Society for Reproduction and Fertility
ISSN2633-8386
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1530/raf-24-0029
Official URLhttps://raf.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/raf/aop/raf-24-0029/raf-24-0029.xml
Publication dates
Online01 Sep 2024
Publication process dates
Accepted01 Sep 2024
Deposited07 Oct 2024
Accepted author manuscript
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Open
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