For costing family planning interventions what are benchmark rates for Nepal or for similar regional contexts (such as hill regions in India)? If Nepal data is unavailable, can crude adjustments for rates be made to fit the Nepal context (considering the target groups in scaling up access will be poorer, more remote, less empowered and informed, and therefore more expensive to reach)?
It was not possible to identify a clear data set of rates for family planning interventions within the scope of this study. Relevant literature did not give very recent figures.
Two benchmark rates were reported for family planning costs in Nepal:
- Thapa and Tsui (1990) estimated annual family planning costs of US$38.54 million per year to reach 1.6 million users in the year 2000, a 34% contraceptive prevalence rate
- Vlassoff et al. (2004) reported that per user cost of family planning in Nepal for 1980 was US$80 (1987 dollars)
Comparing with other figures in the Vlassoff report US$80 seems very high. Per user figures for South East Asia are reported as both US$22 and US$8. These two different figures represent cost per unmet user and cost per current user respectively. That two different figures are reported for the same region highlights the complexity of reading data on this issue.
Section 4 of the report gives references for tips and advice on costing family planning with:
- details of a reproductive health costing tool from WHO
- an article providing practical tips on costing family planning programmes at the clinic level
- an article highlighting the difficulty with costing family planning as so little is known about service delivery costs
Section 5 contains background reading material on family planning programmes and costs. Section 6 provides some references on healthcare delivery in Nepal.
