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Request for Proposal
OPTIMAL BIRTH SPACING INITIATIVE (OBSI)
Translating Research into Action
GRANTS PROGRAM
The CATALYST Consortium is pleased to announce that it will award three grants in the amount of $30,000 to $40,000 each. Grants will be awarded to organizations proposing to conduct innovative activities in areas such as: training, counseling, community outreach, male involvement and non-health programs, or other interventions that will make a contribution to implementing an OBSI grant at the community level. Pathfinder International, the managing partner for the CATALYST Consortium, will administer the grants. CATALYST will provide technical assistance to grantees as needed for implementation of activities, and will work closely with grantees on monitoring and evaluation.
BACKGROUND
For many years family planning experts have generally agreed that a 24-month birth interval (1) is important for infant, child and maternal health. However, this thinking is rarely recognized at the policy or programmatic levels. Although birth spacing is at the heart of reproductive health/family planning, in reality, it is rarely addressed directly. In short, the 24-month recommendation for birth spacing is an "invisible norm".
Risky births have been categorized in the reproductive health and family planning literature by the "four too's": those that occur to women who are too young or too old, or for births that are too many or too close together. Having children too close together has been associated with increased risk of various adverse health outcomes, including mortality, for infants, children and mothers. Increasing the interval between births and delaying age at first motherhood can reduce infant, child and maternal mortality significantly. Birth spacing (*2) can protect lives and health by empowering women and their families to plan and time their pregnancies.
(Click here to download the full RFP.)
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The birth interval is the length of time between one child's birth date to the next child's birth date.
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The term "birth spacing" when used by The CATAYLST Consortium, refers to the use of family planning to obtain a birth interval that will achieve the most favorable health and non-health outcomes for mothers, children, and their families.
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The CATALYST Consortium is a global reproductive health activity initiated in September 2000 by the Center for Population, Health and Nutrition, Bureau for Global Programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Consortium is a partnership of five organizations: Agency for Educational Development (AED), Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Meridian Group International, Inc., Pathfinder International and PROFAMILIA/Colombia. Its overall strategic objective is to increase the use of sustainable, quality family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) services and healthy practices through clinical and non-clinical programs.
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