About
The Bay Area International Group focuses on the quantitative aspects of family planning and reproductive health. Our overall goal is to expand family planning and improve reproductive health in developing countries by using limited resources as effectively as possible. Our group draws on the cross-disciplinary skills of a number of academic institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area, and includes economists, public health professionals, epidemiologists, as well as international experts in business, reproductive health and AIDS prevention.
Bay Area International Group
Recent Work (8)
War and Reproduction: Angola’s Fertility in Comparative Perspective
For four decades, Angola has experienced war, which has inevitably inè uenced the country’s social development. The intensity and geographical spread of the war has è uctuated over that period. This paper examines fertility and other relevant socio-demographic characteristics in Angola and attempts to relate them to its protracted civil conè ict. To situate Angola’s fertility in the sub-Saharan context, comparisons are made with a selection of other African countries. The analysis paints a picture of a generally pre-transitional society characterised by an early start of childbearing, high fertility and a contraceptive prevalence that is among the lowest in Africa. Angola also trails behind most of the sub-continent in childhood mortality and maternal care indicators. The available data suggest that Angola’s fertility drops when hostilities peak and rebounds in the periods of relative peacefulness, and that these è uctuations are stronger in regions more affected by the é ghting than in less affected ones. However, there is no indication that the war has exerted any enduring and direct impact on trends in Angola’s fertility beyond its generally inhibiting effect on any improvements in social welfare that might otherwise have encouraged some fertility decline.
Franchising of Health Services in Developing Countries
Grouping existing providers under a franchised brand, supported by training, advertising and supplies, is a potentially important way of improving access to and assuring quality of some types of clinical medical services. While franchising has great potential to increase service delivery points and method acceptability, a number of challenges are inherent to the delivery model: controlling the quality of services provided by independent practitioners is difficult, positioning branded services to compete on either price or quality requires trade-offs between social goals and provider satisfaction, and understanding the motivations of clients may lead to organizational choices which do not maximize quality or minimize costs. This paper describes the structure and operation of existing franchises and presents a model of social franchise activities that will afford a context for analyzing choices in the design and implementation of health-related social franchises in developing countries.