AFIDEP is an independent non-profit organization established to promote the translation and utilization of research evidence for formulation of development policies and resource allocation in Africa. AFIDEP will synthesize and repackage existing evidence and generate new knowledge to guide efforts to address Africa's foremost poverty alleviation and development obstacles namely: rapid population growth, poor public health outcomes and systems, deteriorating environment, and low levels of education. The initial support for the establishment of AFIDEP has been provided by Venture Strategies for Health and Development. (read more)
Misoprostol is a generic medicine with many uses in women's health. Due to its tremendous promise to save women's lives, our partner, Venture Strategies Innovations (VSI), is continuing the work initiated within Venture Strategies for Health and Development and providing technical and financial assistance to governments, non-profit organizations, and businesses to work together to bring this life-saving solution to women. VSI is now operating 14 country programs throughout Africa and Asia to bring this needed medicine closer to women. For updates on the VSI misoprostol program and its growing availability for women's health, visit: www.vsinnovations.org.
Venture Strategies works actively with governments, agencies, and women’s groups to enable women to have control over whether and when to have a child, by reducing barriers to access to fertility regulation methods and the needed correct information. In our view, poor women should not be exposed to the dangers and exploitation of unsafe abortion. We also value participation of the private sector at the community level for improving health care.
Project Areas: The operating principles underlying the creation of Venture Strategies were constructed largely on the experience of its founder and several of its board members in managing philanthropic contributions and contracts in many countries around the world. Also based on this experience, Venture Strategies has created its program called New Philanthropy, whose purpose is to sort out the degree of effectiveness of different types of donor support for international projects, and to clarify the benefits of selecting specific pathways to achieve effectiveness under a variety of circumstances. In May 2008, the New Philanthropy program of Venture Strategies for Health and Development co-sponsored with the Bulldog Trust and the Institute for Philanthropy, both in London, a special dinner at the landmark home of the Bulldog Trust to encourage involvement by interested British families in expanding their philanthropic activities in low-resource developing countries. We are expanding understanding in the policy community of the importance of population growth, determinants of fertility decline, and the many unnecessary barriers to family planning. In collaboration with the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, we have published the first comprehensive review of the wide range of barriers standing between low income women around the world and the family planning methods they want. Parliamentary Hearings—Venture Strategies’ president recently was special advisor to the member of the UK Parliament who convened hearings on rapid population growth in the world's least developed countries. The report was published in 2007 as Return of the Population Growth Factor. Venture Strategies has completed a large evaluation in Western Uganda of an output-based assistance (OBA) program that incorporates voucher incentives for patients and performance contracts with providers. |
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