Designing Evidence-Based Male Engagement Programs

Background
Engaging men and boys in family planning is both a long-standing gap and a major opportunity. Around the world, men play an important role in decisions about contraception, yet most programs designed to involve them have been small and short-term. Even so, we’re starting to see what works: programs that support couples to communicate, address expectations around gender, and link men to reliable services tend to show the strongest results. As countries work toward their family planning goals, clear insight into how to effectively engage men in each local context is needed.

What We’re Doing
GEH, in partnership with Population Services International and Surgo Health, is supporting the development of multiple male engagement initiatives across several geographies. Over a year, we will combine global evidence with geo-specific insights to help partners understand which approaches have the strongest potential, what it takes to adapt them to local contexts, and how to measure outcomes meaningfully.

Approach or Methodology

To reach our goals, the team will:

• Analyzing secondary data to build country-specific profiles of men’s knowledge, behaviors, norms, and partner dynamics tied to family planning.
• Reviewing global and country-level evidence to identify effective, transferable models and the partners who can implement them.
• Develop a male engagement theory of change that clarifies the mechanisms linking men’s engagement to measurable FP outcomes and guides program and evaluation design.
• Building a common measurement framework so implementers can track outcomes consistently and link efforts to changes in contraceptive use, norms, communication, and agency.
• Co-create geo-specific evidence reports that translate insights into clear, context-ready recommendations for designing and adapting male engagement interventions.
• Host convenings to align evidence with practical decision-making and strengthen cross-country learning.