A primary component of USAID’s population program, Maximizing Access and Quality is a collaborative initiative to maximize the accessibility and quality of family planning and other reproductive health services through state-of-the-art methods that are practical and realistic. Implemented through USAID, collaborating agencies and host-country partners, MAQ provides technical assistance and financial support to countries in the development and revision of service delivery guidelines and funds regional conferences, workshops and MAQ Exchanges. With a focus on collecting, disseminating and applying best practices, the MAQ Exchanges serve as a forum to engage USAID, its missions and their host-country counterparts in a dialogue aimed at developing or improving programs that reflect MAQ principles.

As a leader in the MAQ initiative, the PRIME II Project focused its participation to contribute new ideas for developing and applying MAQ principles and implementing MAQ-related programs. PRIME II’s MAQ activities included:

• Hosting and co-chairing a nine-country regional effort to integrate HIV/AIDS prevention into family planning and reproductive health programs in Francophone West Africa
• Contributing to the production and dissemination of key technical documents through the MAQ/WHO Implementation of Better Practices initiative
• Co-chairing the MAQ subcommittee on Community Driven Quality, which facilitates a collaborative effort to identify, test and disseminate tools that strengthen provider-client partnerships to define and improve quality of services; the MAQ CDQ-Day CD-ROM includes presentations, tools and other resources emanating from a forum on Community Driven Quality held in Washington on January 27, 2003
• Providing leadership and facilitation for MAQ Exchanges in Nigeria, Mali and Ghana covering a range of MAQ topics including client-provider interaction, informed choice counseling, supportive supervision and contraceptive technology updates
• Linking the MAQ model with FLASOG, the major ob/gyn federation in Latin America and the Caribbean.