Current Projects » Uganda AFFORD Health Marketing Initiative

2005 – 2010

Futures Group, as a subcontractor to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Center for Communication Programs), is conducting marketing and distribution activities in the USAID-funded Uganda AFFORD Health Marketing Initiative project. AFFORD stimulates Uganda’s growing private commercial sector to embrace and expand the healthcare market. By offering consumers products they need at prices they can pay, AFFORD creates an environment for sustainable growth. Our focus is on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, malaria, child survival, and safe water and sanitation.

Futures Group has done market research and segmentation analysis of the Ugandan health product market, established partnerships with the private health marketing and distribution sector, introduced new products, and expanded promotion strategies for socially-marketed brands. Under a predecessor program called Social Marketing for Change (SOMARC), from 1991 to 1997 Futures Group introduced three products in Uganda. Under AFFORD, we are expanding product and service distribution networks for Uganda’s rural areas and underserved markets.

Key Futures Group Accomplishments

  • Helped build the capacity of the local, project-created Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG), and developed private sector partnerships for new products of UHMG
  • Designed efficient and cost-effective ways of marketing/distributing products
  • Influenced policy change for childhood diarrhea management with the Ministry of Health
  • Introduced a large range of products through private sector arrangements

For example, AFFORD introduced the following products into the Ugandan market, all sourced from private sector suppliers:

  • MoonBeads, a natural FP method
  • Restors and Zinkid, for the treatment of diarrhea in children
  • Aquasafe water treatment tablets
  • “O,” a new branded condom
  • Cotramox, for the prevention of opportunistic infections in HIV/AIDS patients
  • NewFem, a new brand of combined oral contraceptive pill
  • Soft Sure, a brand of progesterone-only contraceptive pill
  • Clovirex, for the treatment and prevention of herpes simplex infections
  • Re-launched the legacy brands from previous USAID-funded projects, including Protector condoms, Pilplan (COC) & Injectaplan (injectable contraceptive)

Additional products are currently under development.

In addition, Futures Group designed a projectwide integrated communication strategy for AFFORD to increase demand for products and empower individuals, families, and communities to actively maintain their own health. The campaign was launched with The Good Life Show, an innovative interactive weekly game show aired on television and radio, which was attended by nearly 100,000 people at over 200 community road shows around the country. Each episode aimed to increase knowledge, facilitate couple communication, and promote positive health behaviors, including correct and consistent use of AFFORD products.