N-MARC
Nepal Social Marketing and Franchise Project: AIDS, Reproductive Health and Child Survival (N-MARC)
Project Duration: July 2006 to December 2009
The mission of the Nepal Social Marketing and Franchise Project (N-MARC), a Private Sector Program (PSP) Task Order under the leadership of the Academy for Educational Development (AED), is to increase the availability and sustained use of family planning (FP), maternal and child health (MCH), and HIV/STI prevention products and services in Nepal.
N-MARC will form local public-private partnerships that will develop and expand the reach of health products and services that will include condoms, long and short-term contraceptives, clinical family planning and sexual health services, diarrhea treatment products, and other products and services that can improve public health.
AED’s central partner under N-MARC is the newly formed local “Partnership for Nepal Social Marketing and Franchising” (the “Partnership”), which currently comprises two key organizations, the Nepal Contraceptive Retail Sales (CRS) Company and the Nepal Fertility Care Center (NFCC). These local partner organizations have distinct, complementary roles with respect to social marketing of health products and social franchising of clinical health services. To complement social marketing efforts, a host of leading commercial companies will team with N-MARC to achieve sustainable health marketing initiatives. In addition, given the link of behavior change to sustainable health marketing and improved health outcomes, N-MARC will also work with a range of NGOs, community-based organizations (CBOs), and other USAID projects in coordinated behavior change efforts. In addition, as no private sector health initiative can succeed without government cooperation, N-MARC will team with the public sector to create and strengthen public-private partnerships.
AED’s PSP partner for N-MARC is EngenderHealth, which will play a key role in the franchised private provider network programs, overseeing health provider training, quality improvement and QA monitoring of FP/RH and STI treatment services, and ensuring compliance with National Medical Standards and National Reproductive Health Clinical Protocols.
Achieving Full Market ImpactN-MARC will use an approach that AED calls Full Market Impact™ (FMI) to achieve project objectives. FMI addresses the four P’s of marketing, (product/supply, price/affordability, place/distribution, and promotion/demand and appropriate use) and has three expected outcomes – equity, commercial viability, and sustainable public health impact. N-MARC’s FMI strategies will increase accessibility and affordability of health products and services, behavior change and demand creation, and health marketing and franchising systems to achieve equity and sustainable public health impact.
