Bangladesh has relatively limited experience providing adolescent friendly health services (AFHS); only a few
NGOs provide services for adolescents, and these tend to be limited to sexual and reproductive health (SRH)
awareness-raising activities and counseling on pubertal changes. To expand AFHS throughout the country and
to extend SRH services to unmarried adolescents in particular, the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Services
Unit of the Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) in collaboration with development partners has
started establishing Adolescent Friendly Health Corners (AFHCs) at selected government facilities at district
and union levels.
Since the AFHC initiative is new in Bangladesh and no evaluations have been conducted of AFHS in the
country context, understanding the implementation of the first phase of the AFHC program model will
generate useful knowledge for improving and strengthening the program moving forward. With this in mind,
and at the request of DGFP, the Population Council through the Evidence Project conducted a qualitative
study of AFHCs to assess their performance and quality of services, and to generate evidence to inform the
effective scale up of the AFHC model to additional facilities around the country. This report presents findings
from a qualitative study assessing ten AFHCs, located in five Maternal and Child Welfare Centers (MCWCs) and
five Union Health and Family Welfare Centers (UHFWCs) in Moulvibazar, Thakurgaon, Sirajganj, Patuakhali,
and Cox’s Bazar districts, all of which are supported by UNFPA.