Social franchising & Marie Stopes International

By Marie Stopes International


Social franchising is one of the innovative ways in which we connect some of the world’s most under-served people with the family planning and reproductive health services they want and need.

There are over 200 million women around the world who want to use family planning but cannot access it. 

A large proportion of people in developing countries use private healthcare providers for most of their health needs, especially people in remote locations or urban slums who may be far from state-run health facilities.


Working with existing providers

We’ve teamed up with existing private healthcare providers in order to scale up access to high quality care for some of the world’s poorest and most under-served people.

Our social franchise network works in much the same way as a commercial franchising operation. Franchisees – clinics, midwives and pharmacies – pay a small fee to join the network.

They receive extensive and ongoing training in a range of sexual and reproductive health services, infection prevention, counselling, and, importantly, how to put their clients’ needs at the heart of what they do.

Once they have completed the initial training and meet our quality standards they are provided with branded signboards and materials, usually bearing the logo of our BlueStar network. We also provide them with affordable high quality medicines and other products from, which they sell to clients using an agreed pricing structure. 

Ensuring quality

As part of the franchise agreement providers must commit to our franchising membership standards, including regular quality assurance monitoring and reporting. We closely monitor the quality of their services to make sure they meet our international standards.

Many franchisees already offer a range of short term family planning solutions before joining the network. We work with them to make sure clients have a wider choice of family planning options, including long acting methods, post-abortion care, and safe abortion services where permitted.