In general, a family planning manager needs two types of information: performance information and operational information.

Performance information is needed for planning and evaluating family planning programs. It is used first to formulate the goals and objectives of a program and later to determine the results and impact of that program. Selecting the right performance information is important because family planning programs can have different goals and objectives, such as:

• Safeguarding maternal and child health;
• Spacing pregnancies;
• Avoiding unwanted births;
• Reducing fertility.

It is important to make sure that the information will be pertinent to the results and impact you wish to evaluate. Performance information can be grouped into six categories:

• Target group characteristics;
• Fertility characteristics of clients;
• Mixture of contraceptive methods;
• Contraceptive failure and discontinuation of use;
• Quality of services;
• Level of community participation and support.

Not all programs need to collect performance information. It is expensive to collect, and managers may judge that the time and effort needed to collect it outweigh its benefits to their programs. Performance Information That Can Be Used to Measure Family Planning Program Results and Impact provides some examples of performance information, how it can be used, and what kinds of decisions can be made using this information.

Tools and Techniques - Performance Information That Can Be Used to Measure Family Planning Program Results and Impact

Operational information is used to assess how well a family planning program is functioning. It provides information on the use of time, people, money, and other material resources. Having timely, accurate, and complete operational information allows you to identify quickly any problems that might prevent you from achieving your objectives. Operational information includes information about:

• Work plan implementation;
• Costs and expenditures;
• Staffing and supervision;
• Logistics.

Operational Information for Monitoring Family Planning Program Operations provides some examples of operational information, how it can be used, and what kinds of decisions can be made using this information.

With so much information potentially available, how do you know which information to choose?

In principle, since the purpose of the MIS is to help you make better decisions, the information you choose should be linked directly to the decisions you make. However, in practice, it is impossible to predict in advance all the decisions you will have to make. There will always be many important decisions that you will not be able to anticipate. Therefore, rather than trying to identify all the specific decisions you might make, a more practical approach is to think about the types of decisions you are currently making. For these types of decisions you need information that permits you to determine whether you are achieving the kind of results that you expected.

Tools and Techniques - Operational Information for Monitoring Family Planning Program Operations

Indicators are usually numerical measures that help you to compare expected results with actual results on a periodic basis. The best indicators are those that are easy to calculate, allow for comparisons between small and large units such as a village or region, and summarize a great deal of activity in one figure.

You can have performance indicators as well as operational indicators. Operational indicators usually measure Inputs, process, and outputs and are often numbers. Performance indicators usually measure results and impact and are often expressed as ratios or percentages. When an indicator is expressed as a ratio or percentage, it will have a numerator and a denominator. The numerator measures a characteristic of the family planing program; the denominator measures the total population that shares this characteristic.

The most common and well-known performance indicator for family planning programs is the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR). Its numerator is the number of family planning users in the population and its denominator is the total number of potential users. Continuing User Rates, another important indicator of performance, has as its numerator the number of women practicing contraception at the end of a specified period of time and, as its denominator, all women who accepted a contraceptive within that specified time period whether or not they are still using contraception.

Because the definitions of numerators and denominators for common family planning indicators are not uniform, it is important to be clear about the definitions of the numerator and denominator for the indicators that you select. This is especially important if you use your indicator to compare your program's performance with other programs. For example, in calculating the CPR or the Continuing User Rates, the results will vary according to the denominator you choose: married couples, married women of reproductive age, or all women of reproductive age. If you are comparing the CPR in your program with that of another program, you must be sure that the numerator and denominator for CPR have the same definitions. Terms that are subject to many interpretations and therefore require careful attention to their definition include: new clients, continuing users, discontinuers, contraceptives distributed, service delivery points, referrals, revisits, and community-based distribution contacts.

Indicators which have been developed for family planning program over the years, can help give you ideas about what indicators to select. However, this list cannot and should not replace the task of making rational choices about the information you need. Make sure you have a good reason for choosing each indictor that you have selected.

Tools and Techniques - Common Indicators for a Family Planning Program

Although extremely useful, indicators may need to be supplemented with other types of information. For example, if you choose the CPR as an indicator, it is important to supplement this indicator with other information, such as the contraceptive failure rate, the rate of discontinuation in the program, or the average duration of contraceptive use. Without this supplementary information, the CPR could give a false impression of the impact of the program on fertility reduction.

Once you have selected your indicators, review your existing management information system to verify that you can obtain information for each indicator you have selected. Use the framework presented in the example below to determine what data you will need, how you will get this data, and how accurate the data must be in order to be useful. To have a useful indicator, you will need not only the required data but also an acceptable degree of accuracy and reliability.

In the table below, the framework has been used to chart the information needs of a community-based program. This framework will help you to chart your information needs and your sources of information. It will also help you to update and adjust your management information system over time.

Tools and Techniques - Charting Information Needs in Community-Based Family Planning Programs