Challenge
Asociación Pro-Bienestar de la Familia (APROFAM) in Guatamala provides a wide variety of services related to family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health throughout the country. APROFAM is an IPPF affiliate and also receives support from USAID. In 1995 MSH was asked to help APROFAM strengthen its management and organizational performance to meet financial sustainability goals while supporting the USAID Mission’s intermediate results of ensuring more families use quality maternal and child health services, and ensuring that maternal and child health services are well managed.
In 2003, an evaluation of the MSH interventions showed many successes: APROFAM had successfully achieved an internal and external focus on quality; internalized the processes undertaken with MSH such that they constituted the main management tools; made a transition from a traditional NGO highly dependent on donor contributions to a viable enterprise; increased the financial sustainability of clinic services from 88% to 122%; diversified and expanded clinic services and increased the total number of consultations from 600,000 in 1998 to over 1,000,000 in 2003.
Current Situation
Five years later in 2008 the successes of the organization and of MSH’s interventions are still evident. The total number of consultations showed a steady increase every year and was measured in 2007 at 1,168,410.
APROFAM’s financial sustainability rose to 97% in 2007 from 68% in 2000, and 86% in 2003. The population covered by APROFAM Education Programs increased by 58% from 2003 to 2007 (113,418 to 179,387.) The income of the Rural Development Sustainability Program rose from an average of 538,830 Quetzales a month in 2000, to 616,376 in 2003, to 928,487 in 2008. The Manager for the Rural Development Program, Lawyer Maria Lucia Escobar, spoke of the importance of this increase “This guarantees the sustainability of social programs over time, especially those on FP and Reproductive Health that APROFAM brings to the rural population.”
Some examples of the Technical Assistance (TA) that MSH has provided to APROFAM to achieve these impressive results are: in 2003 MSH designed a Variable Compensation System to be used by the Rural Development Program (PDR) as well as taught and enabled responsible parties to implement the new PDR model; in 2004 MSH guided APROFAM in the methodology of a New Business Plan design for the financial analysis of possible businesses; in 2005 MSH assisted APROFAM in the preparation, re-working, and final documentation of their strategic plan for 2005-2009; in 2006 MSH initiated the proposal for the Variable Compensation System at APROFAM’s institutional level, and in 2007 MSH assisted with the projections of the financial impact of this system; in 2008 MSH worked with APROFAM on an organizational structure proposal for a new stage of institutional development with recommendations for its implementation.
The value of the Technical Assistance provided by MSH was affirmed by APROFAM’s Executive Director, Lawyer Carlos Bauer, when he said “Without a doubt, the TA of MSH has been fundamental to our institutional development and results achieved by APROFAM.”
