The Population, Health and Environment’s (PHE) Eliminating National Gaps Advancing Global Equity (ENGAGE) Project

Addressing vulnerable and remote communities through policy advocacy

The Population, Health and Environment (PHE) approach recognizes the complex inter-connection between people, their health, and the natural resources on which they depend. In view of this interconnection, a number of organizations globally initiated integrated programming to address both social and environmental challenges dating back to the mid-1980s. Since then, a subset of these programmes have employed the PHE integrated approach, aiming to simultaneously improve access to primary health care services, particularly family planning and reproductive health, while also helping communities conserve the critical ecosystems and natural resources on which they depend. The number of PHE projects increased throughout the early 2000s in the African Region, and proponents of these integrated approaches argue that they can be more effective and more efficient than single sector programmes for many reasons. Considering the outcome of the PHE approach, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Partners in Population and Development (PPD) jointly supported the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD), Government of Kenya to document the PHE approach in Kenya in order to share it with other developing countries through South-South and triangular cooperation.  

This approach mainly aimed to contribute to the achievement of:  SDG 3  (Good health and well-being), Target 3.7 (By 2020, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes); SDG Targets 5.6 (Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences);  and SDG 12.8 (By 2030 ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature). 

In this project, the PHE approach for Eliminating National Gaps and Advancing Global Equity (ENGAGE), a multimedia presentation, was developed in both English and Kiswahili, highlighting many of Kenya’s development successes, including national population policy. The ENGAGE presentation serves as an advocacy tool to promote the PHE approach. The main activities of the project are the organization, implementation and monitoring of policy and advocacy engagements for dialogue. The presentations are available online to stream or download for future use. Presenters at various engagement activities can choose to use narrated videos or to deliver ENGAGE presentations live.  A separate PHE toolkit hosted by Knowledge for Health (K4Health), a project hosted at Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America, provides current and high-quality resources for the PHE community and others interested in learning more about the PHE approach and integrated development.  

The project has proved that it can be used for high-level policy discussions at the national and global levels.  Ten keyways it can help to reach to policy makers which are as follows:  

The ENGAGE toolkit has been based on previous experiences by PRB, which span over 30 years of training and research as well as the development of policy communication tools worldwide. The goal is to improve access to quality, client-centered and linked healthcare services that include family planning and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health services. The project’s work is focused on Baringo and Nakuru counties in Kenya, but a similar project was implemented in Uganda, Ethiopia and Madagascar, and the experiences shared among these countries to modify further for achieving the results.