In October 2019, the IPPF Business Plan started implementing a number of solutions that had been tendered out in a federation-wide process. The tender to host the IPPF Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) Centre was won by Rutgers in The Netherlands. As part of the tender, the Centre took on the management of a global donor contract focused on CSE.
In its management role Rutgers collaborated closely with the hosts of three regional Centres of Excellence, situated in Latin America and Africa: ATBEF in Togo, CIES in Bolivia and FHOK in Kenya.
In the first semester of 2020, Rutgers developed a strategy and plan for the CSE Centre in collaboration with the Secretariat and the leads for the Regional CoEs. Inception meetings were conducted among the participating MAs, which also focused on best practice exchange.
As part of the co-creation and exploration of the inception phase, the Latin American centre designed and piloted a model for regional governance structure which involved other MAs in the region and strengthened the channels for collaboration and communication.
Another innovation, in Togo, was the development of a national app and e-learning course with potential for broad reach. The app was accredited by the Ministry of Education, who also helped to launch it nationally in the final quarter of 2020.
To foster practice and implementation linkages, the Rutgers hosted Centre is developing three case studies which will be finalized in the first semester of 2021. The themes are:
- Scaling and Institutionalizing Sexuality Education,
- Sexuality Education Curricula Adaptation, and
- Digitalization of CSE in the Global South.
The Centre is also working on its communications outputs. In the first quarter of 2021, the Centre will launch an animation explaining the CoE Concept in fun and interesting ways. The centre will also launch a video of ATBEF and its experience establishing and hosting the Regional Centre of Excellence. As soon as these are ready, Rutgers will post links here on the MA Forum.
Other exciting items in the pipeline, are the Digital learning platform and the a web-based CSE Library. Stay tuned for more information, as it becomes available.
In the final months of 2020, IPPF and Rutgers explored new Regional Centres of Excellence to carry on the work and build on the learnings from FHOK and CIES. The Centre is thrilled to announce Profamilia Colombia is the new host of the Regional CoE in Latin America and PPAG Ghana is hosting the Regional Anglophone Africa CoE. They will start implementing the programme in February 2021.
If you have questions or would like to get in touch, please send an email to the CSE Centre