FP Costing 101 Training:

Costing and Economic Evaluation for Family Planning Programs

Module 5. Family Planning Costing Resources

There are several other resources that can be used to guide costing of site level, above-site level, and demand generation activities.

To inform service delivery costs, the Unit Cost Database (UCD) and Unit Cost Study Repository (UCSR) can be utilized. These are large datasets containing a range of costing data for multiple health areas, including family planning.

  • The UCD is an Excel database that includes family planning cost data and outcome variables. The UCD can be found on the Track20 website under "Resources"
  • The UCSR is a source of intervention cost data extracted from published and grey literature and organized by health area (HIV, TB, SBC, FP)

Additionally, there are various data sources that can inform above-site level costs, which include financing for activities such as FP policy and advocacy, supervision, monitoring & evaluation, and governance:

  • Past budgets and/or expenditures
  • OneHealth Tool & LiST default values
  • Family Planning Spending Assessments (FPSAs) and the FPSA expenditure database that collates existing FPSA data
  • National Health Accounts (NHAs) if financing for FP is included

Finally, finding tools to assist with the costing of demand creation activities for family planning can be difficult. There are several demand generation interventions in both CIPs and FP Goals such as mass media, community, and social and behavior change (SBC) activities. Avenir Health developed an SBC cost database for multiple health areas, including FP.

NEXT