RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Establishing and Scaling-Up Clinical Social Franchise Networks: Lessons Learned From Marie Stopes International and Population Services International JF Global Health: Science and Practice JO GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT FD Johns Hopkins University- Global Health. Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Communication Programs SP 180 OP 194 DO 10.9745/GHSP-D-15-00057 VO 3 IS 2 A1 Sarah Thurston A1 Nirali M Chakraborty A1 Brendan Hayes A1 Anna Mackay A1 Pierre Moon YR 2015 UL http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/3/2/180.abstract AB Family planning social franchising has succeeded in countries with an active private sector serving low- and middle-income clients, with services provided mostly by mid-level providers, such as nurses and midwives. Key support for social franchising includes: clinical training and supportive supervision, help building sustainable businesses, marketing and demand creation, and mechanisms to make services affordable for clients. The forward agenda includes selectively introducing other priority health services, improving cost-effectiveness of the model, and promoting sustainability and health systems integration.In many low- and middle-income countries, a majority of people seek health care from the private sector. However, fragmentation, poor economies of scale, inadequate financing, political opposition, a bias toward curative services, and weak regulatory and quality control systems pose serious challenges for the private sector. Social franchising addresses a number of these challenges by organizing small, independent health care businesses into quality-assured networks. Global franchisors Marie Stopes International (MSI) and Population Services International (PSI) have rapidly scaled their family planning social franchising programs in recent years, jointly delivering over 10.8 million couple-years of protection (CYPs) in 2014—up 26% from 8.6 million CYPs just 1 year prior. Drawing on experience across MSI’s 17 and PSI’s 25 social franchise networks across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, this article documents the organizations’ operational approaches, challenges faced, and solutions implemented. The organizations provide intensive capacity building and support for private-sector providers, including clinical training, branding, monitoring quality of franchised services, and commodity support. In addition, franchising programs engage providers and clients through behavior change communication (BCC) and demand generation activities to raise awareness and to attract clients, and they implement initiatives to ensure services are affordable for the lowest-income clients. Social franchise programs offer the private sector a collective platform to better engage government in health policy advocacy and for integrating into new public health care financing and procurement mechanisms. The future of social franchising will require developing approaches to scale-up and sustain the model cost-effectively, selectively integrating other health services into the franchise package, and being responsive to evolving health care financing approaches with the potential to contribute to universal health coverage.