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A GIS-based Modeling Approach to Assess Physical Access to Family Planning Services in South Sudan

Mohamed Abd salam EL Vilaly, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA
Frankline Echerue, UNFPA
Maureen Johns, UNFPA
Wellington Mbithi, UNFPA
Sainan Zhang, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Witness Chirinda, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

South Sudan’s contraceptive prevalence rate is 1.7% for modern methods and 10% for any method of family planning. National metrics indicate the unmet need for family planning is at 30.6%. This study contributes to the development of usable data and geospatial analysis that can support South Sudan’s decision-making processes to improve access to SRH services, as part of UNFPA’s work to achieve its transformative result on ending unmet need for family planning. Within this frame, the study aims to assess physical access to family planning (FP) services. Specifically, it focuses on estimating the average travel time it takes a woman at reproductive age 15-49, to travel from her household to geographically access a healthcare facility that provides FP services with at least 3 modern contraception methods(MCMs). Of the 1,308 healthcare facilities (HF), only 292 of them meet the minimum benchmark of providing at least three MCMs. The analysis also revealed that there are severe physical access limitations across South Sudan to those 292 identified HFs, with 58.74% of females aged 15-49 requiring over 2hours of travel time to reach an identified healthcare facility providing the minimum benchmark of three MCMs for family planning.

Keywords: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Spatial statistics, Policy

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P4.