Welcome to the Madagascar PHE Network's first newsletter! Featuring progress updates since our inaugural meeting in July 2014.

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The Madagascar PHE Network connects, inspires and supports practitioners, donors and policy makers to address Madagascar’s social and environmental challenges in a holistic way.

Expanding access to family planning in Madagascar's biodiversity hotspots

Since our inaugural meeting held in July 2014, Marie Stopes has been discussing and developing new partnerships with a variety of conservation organisations across Madagascar!

Their partnerships coordinator, Eugène Andriamasy, explains: "As we are working in the health sector, many conservation organisations want to integrate their activities with ours. They focus on protecting the environment, while we provide family planning services. This has many benefits ranging from improved health and food security to supporting natural resource management. PHE partnerships are opportunities for all of us to reach the next level in our work."

Madagascar Wildlife Conservation, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group, Centre ValBio, Pivot and Azafady are all exploring ways of collaborating with Marie Stopes to integrate reproductive health services with their conservation and sustainable livelihood initiatives. This will mean incorporating health messages into their environmental education work, and referring those community members interested in family planning to Marie Stopes providers.

Existing partnerships with the Duke Lemur Center and Blue Ventures continue apace, with almost 500 women in these terrestrial and marine biodiversity hotspots choosing to receive long-acting contraceptives from Marie Stopes in 2014.

Wildlife Conservation Society is collaborating with local NGO Mahery and public health staff to provide family planning and other medical services to remote communities across the MaMaBaie area. Thanks to this partnership, 58 women received short-term contraceptives in November-December 2014.

Visit phemadagascar.org for resources and more!

Madagascar represented
at PHE Network Leaders Meeting

Representatives of seven national PHE networks (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Madagascar) came together in Kampala, Uganda, in January 2015 to share experiences of PHE implementation and advocacy, and strive for coordination across country borders.

Caroline Savitzky, National PHE Coordinator for Blue Ventures, represented the Madagascar PHE Network at the meeting. She took this opportunity to establish strong links with the other national PHE network representatives and learn from their experiences of network building. They were joined by representatives of the East African Community, the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, USAID and the Population Reference Bureau.

Looking ahead...

The Madagascar PHE Network will hold further meetings and training sessions in 2015 to engage and equip policy makers, donors and implementing organisations (both managers and field staff) to support integrated health and environment work in Madagascar. Please contact us with your ideas!

Forward

Expanding access to family planning in Madagascar's biodiversity hotspots

Madagascar represented at PHE Network Leaders Meeting

Looking ahead...

Madagascar represented
at PHE Network Leaders Meeting