Strategies for research and policy development must simultaneously address people's needs, the capacity of programs to provide good quality of care, and the range of technological options available.

Our practical purpose is to facilitate expansion of service innovations on a larger scale to improve access to, and the quality of reproductive health care. We are very grateful to have received support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue our work.

If instead policy makers and program managers participate in an interdisciplinary assessment team, make informal visits to local families and have in-depth conversations with local providers and health authorities, the real needs and complex challenges of organizing good reproductive health services become apparent.The first country that implemented this participatory program of assessment, research and policy development was Brazil. I was one of the outsiders who provided support to the initiative.

It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.

We felt that the Gates Foundation looked at our track record and our publications and decided that "this is persuasive; this needs to be done. Let's see what they can do."

It is not enough to give money for demonstration projects. From the very beginning plans should be made for the scaling-up of successful innovations.

I have been working with the World Health Organization since 1989 in an effort to redefine approaches to contraceptive introduction. This has given me the opportunity to insist that strategies for research and policy development must simultaneously address people's needs, the capacity of programs to provide good quality of care, and the range of technological options available.