Bangladesh

For more than 60 years, Pathfinder has partnered with communities, local organizations, and the government of Bangladesh to ensure even the hardest-to-reach people can access equitable, resilient, and quality health care, including reproductive health, family planning, and gender-based violence (GBV) services. Hand in hand, we have strengthened public-sector health services to better serve women and girls. We have reached the most marginalized and underserved communities, including those living in urban slums, Rohingya refugee camps, and regions devastated by climate change-induced floods and natural disasters.  

Strengthening the Health System: In Bangladesh, we support the government to build a responsive and inclusive health system that provides quality care to all Bangladeshis. We do this by:  

• Improving the readiness of health systems and facilities to provide quality care.  
• Strengthening health providers’ capacity through training and mentorship using up-to-date, context-specific curricula and training methodologies.  
• Strengthening demand creation for family planning and reproductive health services through extensive engagement with communities. 
• Working with our partners to implement adaptive and age-specific adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. 
• Integrating digital health solutions, gender-inclusive norms, and GBV-responsive strategies.  

Enhancing Climate Resilience: In Bangladesh, the impacts of climate change are severe, and the effects of climate change are often felt most profoundly by women and girls. We focus on:

• Offering women and girls in low-resource communities the tools, knowledge, networks, and resources they need to remain resilient through climate-induced crises and natural disasters.  
• Upgrading the health system to be more resilient to climate change.
• Engaging communities in disaster preparedness planning.
• Working with youth on climate-resilience adaptation innovations and preparedness measures.

Reaching Marginalized and High Need Groups: We ensure everyone, even the most marginalized groups, has access to quality sexual and reproductive health care. Our work includes:   

• Improving access to services through enhanced quality and reach of services, local advocacy, structural changes, and inter-agency coordination.  
• Strengthening community outreach and community-based, door-to-door services reflecting the needs and contextual realities of communities.    
• Leveraging local and public-private partnerships.  
• Enhancing the capacity of the service providers and local organizations to provide sexual and reproductive health care to Rohingya refugees.  

Advancing Gender Equality: We support the integration of gender-transformative, inclusive, and GBV-responsive approaches in the national public reproductive health service system, fostering equitable and rights-based service delivery. This includes:  

• Supporting integration of the gender-responsive family planning services through advocacy, comprehensive nationwide capacity strengthening of health providers, and improving health facility readiness.  
• Developing and facilitating implementation of the first guidance on “Integrating GBV Response into the Family Planning and Reproductive Health Services.”   
• Collaborating with partners to improve transgender communities’ access to the reproductive health services.  
• Promoting gender-transformative approaches in climate change adaptation and sexual and reproductive health and rights.