India’s fertility rate of 2.7 poses a problem for a nation that is already home to over one billion people. There continues to be unmet need for family planning. The inaccessibility of information regarding birth spacing and limiting makes it impossible for men and women to make informed decisions in managing their own reproductive health.

The Fertility Awareness-Based Methods Project addresses the needs of people who use or would use a traditional method of family planning, and the many that lack the skills and information to do so effectively. It assists service delivery organizations to add scientifically tested effective natural methods to the mix of family planning services they provide, to develop supporting norms and policies, and to ensure its sustainability within their programs. The project also works to provide management and technical support to organizations in rural and urban settings, to introduce the Standard Days Method and the Lactational Amenorrhea Method into programs.

Key activities include :

• Supporting the introduction of the FAM (Standard Days Method and Lactational Amenorrhea Methods) into community programs in urban and rural settings;
• Expanding FAM services in NGO and private sector programs, through capacity building, integrating FAM in training curricula and services;
• Conducting scale up research to address the feasibility and impact of introducing FAM methods into public & private sector programs in a geographic area with multiple partners;
• Providing technical assistance to other international agencies and cooperating agencies to integrate and offer FAM services; and
• Advocating expansion of contraceptive choice by including FAM into Government policies and norms.