coverage across the six provinces for the methods listed in Table A1 was 20.8% during the years of 2016 and 2017, just below the national average of 21.5% (Burundi Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 2017).<sup>7</sup> Table 1: Characteristics and contraceptive <u>provision</u> by health centers

||(1)<br>All|(2)<br>Treatment|(3)<br>Control|(4)<br>Treatment –<br>Control|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|No. health centers|138|69|69|-|
|_Panel A: Cha_|_racteristi_|_cs of health c_<br>_Mean/(SD)_|_enters_|_Mean diference_|
|% of health centers with HPO availability|0.28<br>(0.45)|0.33<br>(0.48)|0.22<br>(0.42)|0.12|
|No. HPO (conditional on >0)|1.0<br>(0.00)|1.0<br>(0.00)|1.0<br>(0.00)|-|
|No. CHW|16.12|15.29|16.94|-1.65|
||(9.6)|(9.34)|(9.86)||
|Distance (in km) to local health authority|27.48|30.11|24.85|5.26|
||(20.14)|(21.8)|(18.1)||
|Distance (in km) to regional health authority|14.95<br>(10.09)|15.15<br>(9.34)|14.76<br>(10.86)|0.39|
|Population|15775|15387|16163|-776|
||(8564)|(7465)|(9577)||
|Childbearing-aged women|3739|3647|3831|-184|
||(2030)|(1769)|(2270)||

_Panel B: Monthly number of contraceptives administered by health centers between Jan 2020 and Mar 2022_

|||_Mean/(SD)_||_Mean diference_|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Sayana Press|8.17|8.47|7.87|0.6|
||(13.63)|(15.2)|(11.96)||
|Any contraceptive dispensed|447.4|445.5|449.3|-3.7|
||(328.5)|(305.1)|(352.6)||

Notes: Mean (SD) represents the mean and standard deviation at the health center level, while the last column shows the mean difference between the treatment and control groups. Significance: ***=.01, **=.05, *=.1 Panel A reports characteristics of health centers, based on data provided by the Burundian Ministry of Health in the first trimester of 2024. The count of women of childbearing age (15-49 years old) at each health center is estimated by multiplying the local population within the health center’s catchment area by the national proportion of this demographic (23.7%). The local health authority refers to the nearest administrative office within the community, while the regional health authority corresponds to the official health district office where the health center is located. Panel B presents the monthly quantity of contraceptives administered during the baseline period, according to the National Health Information System (NHIS). Data for the period between January 2020 and March 2022 (i.e., before training was implemented in the treatment arm) were collapsed at the health center level.

# All statistics presented in the table are statistically similar between the treatment and

# control groups (columns 2 and 3). We observe statistically significance differences neither in the capacity levels of health centers nor contraceptive delivery between the two groups (column

> 7 The weighted average of contraceptive coverage takes into account the proportion of each province in our sample. The province-level coverage rates for 15-49 year old women in unions at the time of the DHS survey were reported as follows: 16.2% for Bubanza, 20.3% for Cankuzo, 12.8% for Cibitoke, 27.4% for Kirundo, 8.6% for Makamba, and 27.8% for Muyinga (Burundi Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 2017). These rates encompass reversible modern contraceptive methods such as injectables, monthly pills, morning-after pills, condoms, implants, and IUDs. When considering sterilization, natural, and traditional methods, coverage rises to 26.8% in our sample and 28.5% nationally.

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