Banyan Global, as a partner on the Local Health System Sustainability (LHSS) Project, is working to ensure gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) integration in Afghanistan’s private sector health services. The project has two main objectives to expand private sector programming in Afghanistan:

1. Provide financial and technical support to the Afghan Social Marketing Organization (ASMO) aimed at expanding their role and improving their organizational capabilities to deliver sustained health impact.
2. Increase product coverage and support establishment of franchising and provider networking models to improve service provision by partnering with additional social marketing/franchising organizations.

LHSS Afghanistan will achieve these objectives through a series of grants to ASMO. Banyan Global is providing technical support to ASMO to ensure integration of GESI principles and best practices into their plans, strategies, and media products, taking challenges in the current operating environment into consideration. Interventions focus on reducing financial barriers, holding health services accountable for meeting all clients’ needs and making sure that the care patients receive meets minimum standards.

Banyan Global is a subcontractor to Abt Associates on the $209 million, five-year USAID-funded LHSS project under the Integrated Health Systems award that works globally in up to 52 countries to strengthen their health systems as a means to achieve universal health coverage and improve population health and well-being. With an eye toward empowering countries to transition away from donor support, the project is strengthening the capacity of local organizations to lead implementation. Banyan Global is responsible for providing technical assistance to promote gender integration and social inclusion in LHSS activities that strive to increase financial protection, population coverage, and service coverage of quality essential services, LHSS’s three priority areas. Banyan Global also supports work to increase private investment in the health sector and strengthen private sector engagement.