Broadcasting for Change
USAID’s ongoing partnership with journalists in Madagascar is increasing community awareness of expanded family planning access
reporting on family planning and reproductive health issues. / Health Policy Plus for USAID
Amiko Philberte did not always want to be a journalist. Growing up in Morondava, a coastal town in west Madagascar, she dreamed of being a police officer. Amiko would end up serving her community, just not in the way she had imagined.
A Journalist is Born
For over two decades Amiko Philberte has helped people in her community access family planning services and lead healthier lives, first as a radio host, and later, as a peer educator and journalist. Recently, her reporting for Radio Antsivabe has focused on the rights provided to Madagascar’s women and girls under a revised national family planning and reproductive health law.
An End to Uncertainty
For nearly 100 years, Madagascar — a country with historically high fertility rates — operated under a colonial-era law prohibiting advertising and distribution of contraception to youth or married women without spousal consent. Women and providers who didn’t comply risked fines and imprisonment, deterring many women and girls from seeking care.
Then, in 2018, Madagascar’s president signed a long-awaited Reproductive Health and Family Planning bill into law, permitting equal access to family planning and reproductive health services and products.
Journalists Unite
One year after the enactment of the historic family planning law, a network of USAID-trained journalists began to report on the law, ensuring that the Malagasy people knew their rights.
“It is my duty to disseminate this law through reporting…,” Amiko says. “There are still many remote areas in our region that are cut off from the cities and radio is the only way for them to get information.”
Engaging the media — from local radio, television, and newspaper journalism to social media — is essential to building awareness and promoting issues relevant to a wide audience.
USAID-supported trainings like the one offered to Amiko help journalists understand the fundamentals of family planning and reproductive health, and the critical importance of access to these services for the country’s development.
Waiting Room Testimonials
As part of their training, the journalists visited a local family planning clinic to put their interview and reporting skills to practice. What they found looked very different from the waiting rooms of the past. Amiko notes, “I can see and feel the impacts of this law in my community and on those around me.”
Newly married, Iarinjaka and his wife were waiting for an antenatal visit when he shared, “We are thinking about three children…four at most…We haven’t thought about [family planning] yet so we will take time to think about it [and] take advice…from the health care workers here.”
A mother of two, ready to grow her family, explained, “[By using family planning, my husband and I] were able to focus on our second child, wait for him to grow and to start going to school…[He] is now 4 years old so my husband and I are planning to [have another child] now. I talk with other people and say that family planning is good if you want to space births…you have to progress along as a family and obviously family planning forms part of this.”
Across from her, Rahantarivola, another mother with a baby boy cooing happily on her lap, told one journalist, “[Because of family planning, my children] could have what other children have. I can go out, find a wage. I have peace of mind. When [my husband and I] got married, we had no decision made on the number of children we would get, but life is hard now you see. You have to pay for kids’ schooling, you rent your house, so you are limited.”
as a way to help women gain greater agency and choice. / Health Policy Plus for USAID
Ambinimanantsoa Solomalala Tsiory Hasina, a nurse midwife working at the clinic, points to the real-world benefits of the new law to help families.
“Women should be free to choose,” she says, “but not forced.”
Change is Underway
In 2019, a year after the new law went into effect and Amiko and her colleagues began reporting on it, the positive effects of voluntary family planning were evident.
That year, Madagascar averted over 100,000 unintended pregnancies and prevented nearly 300 maternal deaths compared to 2017, the year before the law went into effect.
“I am proud of being a family planning and reproductive health journalist,” Amiko shares. “When I meet a pregnant mother with a child in her arms, I take time to talk to her and advise her on [family planning] and to go to [the] basic health center or community health volunteers, but also to inform her that no one has the right to stop women from using family planning because there is [now] a law that protects us.”
About the Author
Health Policy Plus (HP+) strengthens and advances health policy priorities at global, national, and subnational levels. The project aims to improve the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems through policy design, implementation, and financing.
