In 1992, a group of global sexual and reproductive health and rights experts began sharing their know-how for designing innovative technical approaches to strengthen health systems, and for evaluating them – and so Options was born.

The UK government’s development aid department was the first to leverage this expertise. Options ran the first health and population resource centre for the Department for International Development and quickly became the go-to company in what was originally a niche area.

As the world’s health challenges evolved and shifted, so demand grew for Options’ expertise. Small assignments grew into larger, multi-year programmes that worked across health systems. Options attracted world-class experts in key countries, like Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and Malawi and became a trusted partner to their ministries of health.

Over the last thirty years, Options has worked in more than 60 countries, and has delivered high-profile programmes, including the UK government’s flagship ‘end FGM’ programme, The Africa-led Movement to End FGM (The Girl Generation), and the E4A-MamaYe programme which uses data to improve decision-making for the health of women and girls. Options was also a key consortium partner on the UK Aid flagship Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme where we led on creating an enabling environment to ensure sexual reproductive health and family planning commitments are met, across 10 countries.

We remain passionate about working in close, trusted partnerships to build effective and equitable health systems so that everyone can access the high-quality health services they need, without financial burden. And with rising threats from climate change, deadly diseases and natural disasters, we can’t afford to wait or slow down.