The Intersection of Gender, Access, and Quality of Care in Reproductive Health Services: Examples from Kenya, India, and Guatemala Karen Hardee (April 2005)  Full Document (English)      Order for free      email to me  The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo stressed the importance of gender and noted that reproductive health programs should be implemented from a gender perspective. However, little has been written about how reproductive health programs that focus on improving quality of care and access to care can integrate gender. This paper describes the experiences of three types of programs (government, reproductive health NGO, and women’s health NGO) in Kenya, India, and Guatemala that integrate gender in their work and examines how they integrate gender into programs that improve quality of care and access to care. It should be emphasized that this report does not document whether gender integration results in higher quality and access, but rather documents how gender integration can take place. This report is based on data that were collected in the three countries, through interviews with a total of 27 program staff and 34 providers and through focus groups with 136 clients. These three types of programs engage clients in the clinic and community setting in a manner closely related to their mandates and perspectives on gender. In the government and reproductive health (RH) NGOs, the emphasis is on quality and access, with gender included as a means to reach those goals. The women’s NGOs have the mandate to first promote gender equity (primarily through women’s empowerment), and also to use it as a means to promote reproductive health care. The organizations with the strongest internal gender policies, namely the women’s and RH NGOs, are also the most committed to integrating gender into their programs for clients. The RH NGOs are most committed to gender equity or equal participation of women and men in the organization.