Family Empowerment Media

Family Empowerment Media (FEM) uses radio shows to inform people in Nigeria about modern forms of contraception. In doing so, they increase the usage of modern contraceptives and reduce deaths from unintended pregnancies.

What problem are they trying to solve?

FEM works to decrease maternal mortality in Nigeria, by increasing the usage of modern contraception. Nigeria has a very high maternal mortality ratio, of 917 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births;¹ the average in high income countries is around 11 maternal deaths per 100,000 livebirths.² In addition, Nigeria also has a high average fertility rate (5.02 children per woman).³ Together, this means that approximately 5% of women in Nigeria die from pregnancy related causes.⁴

What do they do?

FEM uses radio shows and ads to provide people with accurate information about modern contraceptive options. These radio shows are broadcast to a large audience in Nigeria, and they aim to inform people about modern contraceptive options, combat misconceptions about its use, and remind people to use contraception consistently.

Importantly, local contraceptives are freely available in many regions in Nigeria, yet a high proportion of women (around 24%) report unmet need for contraception.⁵ A key barrier towards increasing uptake is ensuring that people have access to high-quality information about contraceptives, and are not vulnerable to misinformation (such as the idea that using contraceptives will make a woman permanently infertile). FEM strategically focuses on regions with high contraceptive availability but low awareness. Increasing the use of modern contraception will avert unintended pregnancies, and reduce maternal mortality.⁶

Why do we recommend them?

We think that mass media programs for behavior change have the potential for high impact, but they are difficult to test experimentally (see our report on mass media interventions). However, family planning mass media programs have an unusually strong evidence base. For example, a randomized control trial of a similar campaign to FEM’s in Burkina Faso found that the campaign reduced rates of unplanned pregnancy by ~7.47%.⁷

Increasing the usage of modern contraceptives will generate a number of benefits. Most obviously, maternal deaths will be averted through reducing rates of unplanned pregnancies; Nigeria has a relatively high maternal mortality ratio of around 917 per 100,000 livebirths.⁸ More broadly, tackling misconceptions about modern contraception is a key part of facilitating opportunities for women and girls in LMIC. In particular, there is some evidence suggesting that increasing their usage will enable women to stay in school longer and increase their earnings.⁹ Allowing women to time their pregnancies may also allow for longer intervals between births, which is associated with improvements in infant health.¹⁰

FEM are also a highly data-driven organization, who conduct extensive audience testing and employ local scriptwriters to design their media. We also note that they are planning to run an RCT testing their program starting in 2023. Finally, FEM are a relatively young charity (established in 2020), who were incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship. We think that there is significant benefit to supporting young and highly promising charities, and that FEM have huge potential to scale up.

What would they do with more funding?

Additional funds will be used to support their ongoing family planning campaign in Kano, and to pilot campaigns in new areas such as Kogi, Anambra and Ondo.

More resources

FEM’s website

Notes

1. ‘Fertility Rate, Total (Births per Woman) - Nigeria | Data’, accessed 8 December 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=NG. ↩

2. ‘Maternal Mortality Ratio (Modeled Estimate, per 100,000 Live Births) - Low & Middle Income | Data’, accessed 8 December 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?locations=XO. ↩

3. ‘Fertility Rate, Total (Births per Woman) - Nigeria | Data’. ↩

4. Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie, ‘Maternal Mortality’, Our World in Data, 12 November 2013, https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality. ↩

5. Performance Monitoring for Action, ‘PMA Nigeria (Kano)’, n.d., https://www.pmadata.org/sites/default/files/data_product_results/Nigeria%20KANO%20Phase%202%20XS%20Results%20Brief_Final.pdf. ↩

6. Saifuddin Ahmed, Qingfeng Li, and Amy Tsui, ‘Maternal Deaths Averted by Contraceptive Use: An Analysis of 172 Countries’, Lancet 380 (9 July 2012): 111–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60478-4. ↩

7. Rachel Glennerster, Joanna Murray, and Victor Pouliquen, ‘The Media or the Message? Experimental Evidence on Mass Media and Modern Contraception Uptake in Burkina Faso’, 2021. ↩

8. ‘Maternal Mortality Ratio (Modeled Estimate, per 100,000 Live Births) - South Sudan | Data’, accessed 7 July 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?locations=SS&year_high_desc=false. ↩

9. David Canning and T. Paul Schultz, ‘The Economic Consequences of Reproductive Health and Family Planning’, The Lancet 380, no. 9837 (14 July 2012): 165–71, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60827-7. ↩

10. Agustín Conde‐Agudelo et al., ‘Effects of Birth Spacing on Maternal, Perinatal, Infant, and Child Health: A Systematic Review of Causal Mechanisms’, Studies in Family Planning 43, no. 2 (2012): 93–114. ↩