Do Family Planning High Impact Practices Work in Humanitarian Settings? A Preliminary Review of the Evidence

All countries must be prepared to respond to humanitarian emergencies, and there is a critical need for evidence-based approaches to deliver family planning (FP) services to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of crisis-affected populations. The Family Planning High Impact Practices (HIPs) provide vetted, evidence-based best practices for effective FP programming, but have largely been developed with evidence from development contexts.

In 2023, the Women’s Refugee Commission undertook a scoping review of the literature to explore whether service delivery and social and behavior change HIPs have been successfully implemented in humanitarian settings. This brief demonstrates that programming aligned with numerous HIPs has increased contraceptive use in diverse humanitarian contexts, highlighting the feasibility and impact of implementing evidence-based FP practices in these settings.