During ‘natural’ disasters and humanitarian crises, reproductive health (RH) kits are often pre-positioned and administered, to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.

As part of IPPF’s innovations project initiative, a study was conducted from December 2020 to March 2021 to develop two low-budget reproductive health kits for use during humanitarian crisis and facility set-up in Bangladesh. 

RH kits come in one package with essential medicines and supplies to speed up the provision of appropriate RH services (UNFPA, 2011, 2019; Ray-Bennett et al., 2019, 2021). These kits contribute towards the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) and the Sphere Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. As such, they are lifesaving (UNFPA, 2019).

Yet these kits are unavailable at a national level in low-and middle-income countries.

The University of Leicester, in collaboration with the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Data Management Aid and the Directorate General of Family Planning and with funding from the International Planned Parenthood Federation - South Asia Region Office, identified gaps in existing RH kits, as well as developed two low-budget kits ---Facility RH Kit and Crisis RH Kit to overcome this gap. This policy brief introduces these Kits.