Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for Reproductive Health in Crisis Situations: A Distance Learning Module
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Download document The Women’s Refugee Commission is pleased to announce the 2011 revised Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for Reproductive Health in Crisis Situations: A Distance Learning Module (MISP Module).
The MISP, an international standard of care, is a coordinated set of priority activities to be implemented at the onset of every new emergency to: ensure the health cluster/sector identifies an agency to lead implementation of the MISP; prevent and respond to sexual violence; reduce HIV transmission; prevent excess maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality; and plan for the provision of comprehensive reproductive health (RH) services as the situation permits.
The revised MISP Module integrates updates in the MISP chapter of the 2010 Inter-agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings (IAFM). While the five core objectives of the MISP listed above remain the same, important changes have been made within the MISP in the revised IAFM, which are now reflected in the Module. These are:
Attention to the needs and capacities of adolescents: The MISP Module prompts users to ensure that adolescents are provided with opportunities to participate in designing and implementing accessible, acceptable and appropriate MISP services.
Considerations of urban displacement: More than half of the world’s displaced populations now live in cities and towns. The MISP Module guides users to consider the particular challenges to displaced persons’ access to MISP services in urban settings.
Information, Education and Communication (IEC) for communities: The MISP Module highlights the importance of IEC with displaced populations about the benefits of seeking MISP services.
RH coordination strategically centered within the health sector/cluster: It is now the responsibility of the health sector/cluster to identify a lead RH agency—one with the most capacity in the field to provide operational and technical support on RH to all agencies providing health services.
Importance of agencies establishing a complaints mechanism to handle complaints of sexual exploitation and abuse: Agencies should ensure the complaints mechanism is safe, confidential, transparent and accessible.
Priority activities in addition to the MISP: Additional priority activities include ensuring that: contraceptives are available to meet the demand; syndromic treatment of sexually transmitted infections is available to patients presenting with symptoms; and antiretrovirals (ARVs) are available to continue treatment for persons already on ARVs, including for prevention of mother-to-child transmission. In addition, ensure that culturally appropriate menstrual protection materials are distributed to women and girls.
The Module aims to increase humanitarian actors' knowledge of the priority RH services. It takes approximately four hours to complete. If you score 80% or higher on the interactive online post-test, you will be certified in the MISP Module. The Module and post-test can be accessed here. The post-test is currently available in English and French; it will be available in Spanish in late September and in Arabic in late October.