Siaya County’s recent Programme Implementing Team Meeting. (Photo courtesy of the Siaya County Department of Health and Sanitation.)
Siaya County’s government recently published a story describing how its Department of Health and Sanitation is strengthening reproductive health services through a partnership with The Challenge Initiative (TCI), pointing to real progress toward locally financed, sustainable programming.
According to the county’s report, published July 8, the partnership is helping shift Siaya away from donor-dependent family planning and maternal health interventions and toward systems that the county funds and owns itself, an approach meant to keep essential reproductive health services available to residents well beyond any single funding cycle.
The update came out of a review meeting for the county’s Programme Implementing Team, where public health officials outlined a handful of concrete improvements in service delivery. Chief among them: steadier availability of family planning supplies. By tightening supply chain management and stepping up routine monitoring, the county said it has cut down on stockouts, so clients are less likely to arrive at a facility only to find the method they need isn’t available.
Officials also pointed to a rise in postpartum family planning uptake, the practice of offering contraceptive counseling and services to women in the period following childbirth. Siaya has been integrating that counseling directly into antenatal and postnatal care, so mothers can receive family planning information and services during visits where they’re already seeing a provider, rather than needing a separate appointment. County officials described this as both more convenient for mothers and more effective at supporting informed reproductive health choices.
Data plays a central role in how the county tracks its progress. Health facilities feed information into Kenya’s national MOH-512 reporting tool, and the county said it is using that data to sharpen its understanding of maternal health indicators facility by facility.
The county also tied its progress to policy, noting that Kenya’s Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Act of 2024 gives these efforts a firmer legal and financing foundation – reinforcing the kind of sustainable, county-led investment the TCI partnership is designed to support.
Taken together, county officials framed the update as evidence of a more resilient, increasingly self-sufficient health system – one built on stronger partnerships, better data, reliable financing, and more integrated services. The goal, as officials described it, is straightforward: broader access to reproductive health care and better outcomes for women, children, and families across Siaya County.
TCI has supported Siaya County since March 2022 as part of its broader work across Kenya, helping local governments strengthen health systems and individual capacity to sustain services long after initial donor investment ends. Siaya County graduated from TCI’s direct support in June 2025.
Source: Siaya County Government, “Siaya Strengthens Reproductive Health Through Sustainable Partnership with The Challenge Initiative (TCI),” published July 8, 2026. Read the original story
