As part of our GRID3 Mapping for Health project, we have recently released a set of gender toolkits to help reduce barriers to vaccination linked to gender and social exclusion factors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). These resources are aimed at actors from the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI, Programme Elargi de Vaccination or PEV in French), its partners and health workers across the country.
Literature shows that if a mother does not have the means, decision-making power or knowledge to make informed decisions and act on them, then her child is at greater risk of not being vaccinated. Other studies show that male involvement is essential to improving maternal and child health outcomes. With this in mind, we have developed these toolkit to cover key concepts related to sex, gender, and social inclusion, and provide approaches and methods to conduct gender-based analyses and integrate gender dimension into vaccination intervention planning.
Sex and gender have implications for access to health services and health outcomes for women and men, girls and boys. With these resources, we aim to strengthen the understanding of these concepts and how they may affect vaccination rates based on beneficiaries’ situation, may it be the culture, age, or economic status
— Apphia Yuma, Flowminder’s Country Coordinator for DRC.
Three tools have been made available - in French - to DRC health professionals.
The first tool is a detailed and complete guide on how to integrate gender-based and inclusive analyses into immunisation interventions. Aimed at health practitioners, it can also be used more generally as a key resource for any organisation or programme interested in carrying work in the domain. The second tool is a simplified version of the first guide, designed to be easily used by practitioners in the field. Finally, we have made available a support sheet to specifically focus on integrating gender and equity into the microplanning process at health area level.
Download comprehensive guide (PDF) (in French)
About GRID3 Mapping for Health
GRID3 Mapping for Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a Ministry of Health initiative, supported by Gavi through its INFUSE initiative, and delivered in partnership with Flowminder and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University (CIESIN). The project is a continuation of previous work conducted and/or supported in DRC by the GRID3 programme.
