Best Practices in Training Private Providers

Training of health care providers is one of the most common interventions used in development strategies to improve the quality of reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP) services in developing countries. Decades of experience have produced an abundance of information, guidelines, and best practices on how to effectively train health providers, but most of this relates to public sector providers. In recent years, however, private sector providers have been recognized increasingly as an important source for delivery of RH/FP and other health services in developing countries, even for the poor. Yet the inclusion of private providers in training interventions or even the acknowledgment of their unique needs in discussion forums on training are still not common practices.