Since it's inception in 2012, Track20 has positively influenced the RH M&E space, elevating the quality and use of family planning data. The value of our approach has been seen at multiple levels:
Country: Track20 has transferred skills and knowledge through technical support and mentoring to increase internal government capacity and develop new tools in response to stated needs and data gaps.
Regional: Track20's vast data cache has allowed for analysis of trends regionally, and South-to-South exchange has helped disseminate solutions that fit varying contexts and resource levels.
Global: Track20 tools, approaches and indicators have been adopted by global initiatives and donors as measurement standards, and many routine monitoring and strategic planning processes rely on Track20 FPET annual estimates and EMU data.
Some of the project's most enduring legacies are detailed below and highlighted in the brief Advancing the FP Monitoring Landscape: Track20's lasting impact.
- Introducing Annual Estimates: The Family Planning Estimation Tool (FPET) has transformed FP monitoring by introducing annual estimates of modern contraceptive use (mCP), demand satisfied by modern methods, and unmet need for family planning. These annual estimates are critical for monitoring and strategy development when new survey data are not available. This standardized estimation approach has allowed comparability within and across countries and regions.
- Developing a new standardized indicator to leverage routine data: Track20's SS to EMU Tool converts a country's own service statistics (SS) data into Estimated Modern Use (EMU), a SS-based indicator that can be used to track population-level changes in contraceptive use at regional, national, and cross-national levels. The EMU can be used as input into FPET to introduce timely SS into the annual estimation process.
- Increasing FP expenditure and cost data available for decision making: Track20's Family Planning Spending Assessment (FPSA) informs the FP2030 core indicator related to government domestic spending on FP, which has prompted more transparency and accountability and increased commitments to domestic FP funding. With almost 10 years of FPSA data now available, not only has the amount of expenditure data increased, but it is now possible to examine trends in expenditures. To address a lack of FP cost data gap, Track20 leveraged its network of M&E Officers and trained local consultants to conduct normative costing (Activity-Based Costing and Management or ABC/M) for primary FP costs and posted this primary data to its open-access FP Unit Cost Database and the Global Health Cost Consortium Unit Cost Study Repository.
- Building Government Data Capacity: Track20's network of skilled FP Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Officers have improved internal government capacity in data management and analytics by integrating Track20's innovative tools and data methodologies into routine Ministry cycles and processes in their own countries and acting as South-to-South resources for other governments through the Track20 M&E Officer Network. Track20 has further expanded and enhanced Governments' capacity to independently analyze and visualize data at all levels of their health system through the DHIS2 FP DataPro App, which embeds complex analysis and visualization tools directly into country HMIS systems to maintain internal analytic expertise beyond any project cycle and position the government as the data owner and expert.
- Introduction of new tools to support data-driven strategy: Track20's innovative FP Goals model has informed country and global strategies across the world. FP Goals combines demographic data, family planning program information, and evidence of the effectiveness of diverse interventions to help decision-makers set realistic goals and prioritize investments across different family planning interventions. To fill data gaps identified by countries as they struggled to answer questions about their programming and emerging issues, Track20 developed an array of easy to use tools that have provided countries with insights into opportunities and barriers to progress for their FP programming.
- Supporting FP's transition to an expanded and interoperable data ecosystem: When the CDC launched an HIV data mart in Zimbabwe, Track20 launched 2 interoperable data marts – a new FP/MCH data mart and a complementary data mart (survey data, vital statistics, population, geospatial data, demographic data) that is useful across health programs. These linked data marts provide an opportunity to leverage information across programs and to integrate data from other sources into combined spaces. For example, population data can be combined with service statistics across multiple health programs to better understand coverage and use of services. With these advances, countries can maximize their use of HMIS data and develop an expanded data ecosystem through the paired implementation of the Track20 DHIS2 FP DataPro app and complementary data and FP data marts.