Through RISE, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, with an investment from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and with technical assistance from PSI, will integrate Smart Start into Ethiopia’s national Health Extension Program – bringing Smart Start to 1 million girls by 2025.
When PSI launched Adolescents 360 (A360) Ethiopia in 2016, we pledged to innovate youth contraceptive programming.
The result? Smart Start. 4 years later? The program is going nationwide.
Developed with and for Ethiopian young people, Smart Start flips the traditional contraceptive counseling conversation – leading with targeted financial messaging designed to help rural Ethiopian girls aged 15-19 and their husbands plan for the families, and lives, that they want.
From the start, our goal centered on serving the hardest-to-reach Ethiopian girls, their husbands and the health system on which they rely. And with three in four girls who engage with Smart Start opting for a contraceptive method, we knew that institutionalizing the work offered a roadmap to reach every girl who needs Smart Start, the most.
Through RISE (Roadmap for Integrating Smart Start in Ethiopia) – an initiative funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and supported with technical assistance from PSI — the Ethiopian Ministry of Health is scaling Smart Start nationwide, supporting 1 million rural, married Ethiopian girls aged 15-19 to access contraception by 2025.
That’s impact at scale.



