PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Brittingham, Sarah AU - Zan, Trinity AU - Andoh, Kouakou Hyacinthe AU - Aryal, Kabita AU - Chissano, Marcos AU - Ferguson, Olivia AU - Fotso, Jean Christophe AU - Harou, Issoufa AU - Khatri, Sangita AU - Kourouma, Kadidiatou Raïssa AU - Kiwanuka, Suzanne N. AU - Lal, Bibek Kumar AU - Govo, Alda Mahumana AU - Malkin, Morrisa AU - Mkandawire, Philip AU - Phiri, Mary Mulombe AU - Olaro, Charles AU - Prata, Ndola AU - Pryor, Shannon AU - Shrestha, Bhagawan AU - Thapa, Basant AU - Touré, Fatoumata Traoré TI - Defining Collective Priorities: Research and Learning Agendas for Family Planning Across 6 Countries AID - 10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00469 DP - 2023 Aug 28 TA - Global Health: Science and Practice PG - e2200469 VI - 11 IP - 4 4099 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/11/4/e2200469.short 4100 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/11/4/e2200469.full SO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT2023 Aug 28; 11 AB - Key FindingsFamily planning (FP) research and learning agendas (RLAs) build a comprehensive understanding of the FP research landscape, identify key evidence gaps, and define national priority questions to drive the production of knowledge that ushers progress toward FP goals.Despite having unique FP contexts, the 6 country FP RLAs share themes within self-care, equity, high impact practices, and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health, with the latter 2 comprising the largest proportion of questions.Early success for the FP RLAs is evident in their use to inform FP costed implementation plans, FP 2030 commitments, and the efforts of thematic working groups across multiple countries.Key ImplicationsNational stakeholders can leverage the process of developing FP RLAs to shape the generation and coordination of responsive research and research utilization that leads to more effective use of resources and responsive programs and policies that align with national priorities.Governments and funding agencies should target their investments to fund research that responds to the priorities that stakeholders have laid out in the FP RLAs, as the answers to these critical questions will improve national programs.Evidence should be the foundation for a well-designed family planning (FP) program, but existing evidence is rarely aligned with and/or synthesized to speak directly to FP programmatic needs. Based on our experience cocreating FP research and learning agendas (FP RLAs) in Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, and Uganda, we argue that FP RLAs can drive the production of coordinated research that aligns with national priorities.To cocreate FP RLAs, stakeholders across 6 countries conducted desk reviews of 349 documents and 106 key informant interviews, organized consultation meetings in each country to prioritize evidence gaps and generate research and learning questions, and, ultimately, formed 6 FP RLAs comprising 190 unique questions. We outline the process for consensus-driven development of FP RLAs and communicate the results of an analysis of the questions in each FP RLA across 4 technical areas: self-care, equity, high impact practices, and youth. Each question was categorized as a learning versus research question, the former indicating an opportunity to synthesize existing evidence and the latter to conduct new research to answer the question. Themes emerging from the data shed light on shared evidence gaps across the 6 countries. We argue that similarities and differences in the questions in each FP RLA reflect the unique implementation experience and context, as well as each country’s placement on the FP S-curve. Early uses of the FP RLAs include informing the development of FP costed implementation plans and FP2030 commitments. FP RLAs have also been discussed in multiple thematic working groups. For FP stakeholders, these FP RLAs represent a consensus-based agenda that can guide the generation and synthesis of evidence to answer each country’s most pressing questions, ultimately driving progress toward increasingly evidence-based programming and policy.