Kenya Leading the Way: A PRB ENGAGE Multimedia Presentation
(June 2011) Kenya Leading the Way is a multimedia presentation that examines the important link between family planning and development in Kenya. The presentation incorporates Google Earth, animation, video, and the groundbreaking Trendalyzer (bubble graph) software developed by Hans Rosling and his team at the Gapminder Foundation. It was developed by PRB and Kenya's National Coordinating Agency for Population and Development (NCAPD) in collaboration with a task force of local experts in population and family planning.
The Population Reference Bureau is creating these pioneering multimedia presentations in collaboration with local implementing agencies in selected countries, including Kenya, Uganda, and Pakistan. Designed to "engage" high-level policymakers and other leaders, ENGAGE presentations are capturing attention across the globe. They offer exciting new ways of exploring associations among population, health, and socioeconomic indicators across time and in a visually stimulating way that provide new perspectives for traditional messages.
Kenya Leading the Way highlights both the improvements in development indicators over time as well as the disruptions and "stall" in family planning use. Focusing on the high level of unmet need for family planning, it presents the many consequences of unplanned pregnancies, including high-risk births, maternal mortality, and rapid population growth. The presentation links family planning as a central component of development in order to reduce poverty, underscoring how increased family planning use can contribute to improvements in the health and well-being of Kenyan families.
In country, each presentation is developed using a participatory approach, with multisectoral task forces established to guide the process and shape the messages. To date, the response from audiences has been overwhelmingly positive, leading to lively national policy debates and generating the kind of "buzz" that helps keep the issues alive and high on national agendas.