In November 2023, the Australian Government announced AUD $56.8 million for a new program to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights across Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific. That program is TUSIP, which stands for Towards Universal Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Indo-Pacific. Funded and managed by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), TUSIP runs from 2024 to 2028, has since been confirmed at AUD $59.3 million, and is active in six primary countries including the Philippines. This article explains what TUSIP is, who implements it, what it is designed to achieve, and how its work in the Philippines connects to family planning, child marriage, and adolescent health. Throughout this article, SRHR refers to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
TUSIP is an Australian Government initiative, funded and managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are two of four implementing partners who receive funding through TUSIP to deliver specific program components. The other two implementing partners are the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and MSI Reproductive Choices (known in the region as MSI Asia Pacific).
TUSIP builds on a series of Australian-funded SRHR programs that have run in the region since 2007. The immediate predecessor was the Indo-Pacific Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Program (C-Surge, 2021 to 2024), which focused on responding to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual and reproductive health services. C-Surge delivered SRHR services to 4.5 million people and supported over 125,000 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. TUSIP extends and expands on that foundation.
Towards Universal Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Indo-Pacific
Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
AUD $59.3 million, 2024 to 2028
Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam; with activities in Afghanistan, Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka
UNFPA, UNICEF, IPPF, and MSI Reproductive Choices
Indo-Pacific SRHR Program / C-Surge (2021 to 2024)
https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/media-release/advancing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-southeast-asia
DFAT describes TUSIP's goal as advancing the universal realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights by strengthening the enabling environment to fully protect related human rights and responding to unmet need by ensuring quality, comprehensive services are available to all. The program has three integrated components that work simultaneously: service delivery, systems strengthening, and policy and legal advocacy.
Service delivery focuses on ensuring that people, particularly those most marginalized, have access to the full package of SRHR services including contraception, maternal health care, safe abortion care, HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services, gender-based violence (GBV) response, and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). Systems strengthening focuses on building the health system, provider, and community capacities that make service delivery sustainable after program funding ends. Policy and legal advocacy focuses on creating or improving the national and local regulatory environments that protect SRHR and remove structural barriers to access.
TUSIP also explicitly includes two priority harmful practice areas: the elimination of child, early, and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU), and new programming on female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) launched in 2025 across Southern and Southeast Asia, both of which are relevant in the Philippines.
TUSIP operates through four distinct implementing partnerships, each with a different scope, geographic focus, and delivery model within the program.
Leads SRHR systems strengthening and policy advocacy in the primary focus countries. In the Philippines, UNFPA works with the Department of Health (DOH) on family planning policy and service delivery barriers, with the Department of Education (DepEd) on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), and with the National Youth Commission and Sangguniang Kabataan on adolescent SRHR. UNFPA also co-led the development of the Philippines National Action Plan to End Child, Early, Forced Marriages and Unions (2025 to 2028). Its 2024 to 2028 country programme for the Philippines has a proposed indicative budget of $36 million, of which $20.9 million is through co-financing including TUSIP.
Focuses primarily on child marriage elimination and adolescent SRHR programming, reaching the youngest and most vulnerable. In the Philippines, UNICEF's TUSIP-linked work includes supporting the drafting of the national child marriage elimination strategy (completed 2024), commissioning the CEFMU Social Norms study for Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (launched October 2025), co-developing the National Action Plan on child marriage (launched December 2025), and conducting a child early and forced marriage mapping analysis for the Pacific region.
The largest service delivery component of TUSIP. Led jointly by MSI Reproductive Choices (MSI Asia Pacific) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), RESPOND II operates across nine countries. MSI focuses on Cambodia, Vietnam, Timor-Leste, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. IPPF delivers through its Member Associations in its country-level network, including the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP) as the in-country IPPF partner. RESPOND II delivered over 1.5 million SRH services in its first year. The Philippines is one of RESPOND II's priority countries for reaching marginalized populations.
New programming launched in 2025 led jointly by UNFPA, UNICEF, and IPPF to address female genital mutilation and cutting in Southern and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. FGM/C is practiced in some Muslim communities in the BARMM provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, and Lanao del Sur, where informal surveys suggest prevalence of 80 to 86 percent among women and girls in affected communities. Its intersections with child marriage and adolescent health make it part of the broader TUSIP mandate in the Philippines.
https://eseaor.ippf.org/stories/2024-highlights-year-resilience-and-progress-advancing-srhr
https://www.guttmacher.org/2026/04/just-numbers-australia-global-srhr-investment-impact-2024
The Philippines has a substantial and documented SRHR gap. Understanding the problem that TUSIP is designed to address clarifies why the program's four work streams (family planning, adolescent health, child marriage, and gender-based violence (GBV) and harmful practices) are all necessary and interconnected.
In 2023, the DOH estimated that 12.9 million Filipino women, or 44 percent of women of reproductive age, had a need for family planning. Only 58 percent of demand was being satisfied with modern family planning methods, against a national target of 75 percent by 2030. To close this gap, an additional 10.177 million women would need to be reached, assuming total demand stays constant. The poorest women face the greatest unmet need: in 2022, women in the lowest wealth quintile had an unmet need exceeding 20 percent despite having the highest rate of modern contraceptive use. Adolescents in union face the highest unmet need at 40 percent. Adolescent pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14 increased from 2,411 births in 2019 to 3,343 in 2023, even as the overall population growth rate slowed.
https://doh.gov.ph/uhc/health-programs/family-planning-program/
The Philippines ranks 12th globally in the absolute number of child marriages. According to the 2024 Situation Analysis of Children, around 460,000 girls under 18 were in marriages or unions in 2022, and 73,000 of that number entered unions before age 15. One in ten girls nationally remains at risk of early or forced marriage. Republic Act 11596, signed in December 2021 and implemented from January 2022, prohibits child marriage and imposes penalties, but implementation has been uneven, particularly in the BARMM. Child marriage rates in BARMM are substantially higher than the national average: 15 out of every 100 girls in the region are married before age 18, and 2 before age 15.
A UNICEF study launched in October 2025, commissioned with support from the Australian Government's DFAT and focused on Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, found that cultural and religious norms, poverty, and weak enforcement of RA 11596 are the three primary drivers. Families in these communities frequently view early marriage as a means of preserving family honor, preventing what is considered haram under Islamic teachings, or reducing household financial burdens. The study involved around 100 respondents across both provinces and generated recommendations that directly informed the development of the National Action Plan on child marriage.
The Philippines has a high prevalence of gender-based violence. Australia's predecessor C-Surge program reached over 125,000 GBV survivors with services across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. FGM/C, while underreported nationally, is practiced in some Muslim communities in the BARMM provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, and Lanao del Sur, with prevalence estimates of 80 to 86 percent among women and girls in affected communities. TUSIP's 2025 FGM/C programming is the first time Australian funding has explicitly included this practice in the Philippines as a program target.
Through UNFPA and UNICEF technical and financial support, the national strategy to eliminate child marriages was drafted in 2024. This strategy became the foundation for the National Action Plan to End Child, Early, Forced Marriages and Unions for 2025 to 2028, which was formally launched on December 12, 2025. The action plan was developed by the Government of the Philippines with the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), UNFPA, UNICEF, and civil society partner the Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD). UNICEF and UNFPA have supported local government units (LGUs) in strengthening service delivery and referral mechanisms, embedding child, early, and forced marriage and union (CEFMU) prevention and response within broader child protection and GBV systems.
Through RESPOND II, IPPF and MSI are delivering outreach services in the Philippines to reduce geographic barriers to care, particularly in remote and underserved communities. The Philippines is one of RESPOND II's four priority countries for reaching marginalized populations (alongside Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam). IPPF delivers through its Philippine Member Association, the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP). FPOP is the largest non-governmental family planning organization in the Philippines, operating more than 1,100 service points including 29 permanent and 27 mobile clinics and a network of over 1,000 community-based distributors. It provides voluntary surgical contraception, reversible contraception, medical and laboratory services, and fertility awareness advice, with a major focus on young people.
UNFPA works with the Department of Education on the full implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) across Philippine schools, and with the DOH on analyzing and addressing barriers to family planning and the health sector response to gender-based violence. At the local level, UNFPA works with Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) units to strengthen adolescent SRHR governance. A longitudinal cohort study on the Filipino child, supported by UNFPA, UNICEF, and the Australian Government, found that by age 16, 8.4 percent of participants had already engaged in sex, with over 60 percent of sexually active girls experiencing pregnancy, underscoring the urgency of early, evidence-informed SRHR policy for adolescents.
UNICEF Philippines, with DFAT support, commissioned a qualitative research study on the social norms driving child marriage in Jolo, Sulu and Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, conducted in collaboration with ThinkPlace Philippines. The study involved approximately 100 respondents including religious leaders, parents, adolescents, educators, and government stakeholders, and was launched in October 2025. It is the first publicly available in-depth qualitative study on CEFMU social norms specifically in these two provinces. Its findings that legislation alone is insufficient to change a practice deeply rooted in poverty, religious interpretation, and family honor norms directly shaped the design of the December 2025 National Action Plan.
TUSIP works within a Philippine policy environment that is both supportive of SRHR in law and constrained in implementation. Understanding this environment is important for assessing what TUSIP can and cannot change.
The Philippines has enacted several major SRHR-related laws in recent years. Republic Act 10354, the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) Act of 2012, guarantees universal access to contraceptives, maternal care, and sexuality education. Republic Act 11596 (2021) prohibits child marriage. Republic Act 11930 (2022) criminalizes online sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Republic Act 11188 (2019) protects children in situations of armed conflict. The Universal Health Care Act (RA 11223, 2019) mandates integration of family planning and reproductive health into universal health coverage. This legal foundation is among the strongest in Southeast Asia for SRHR.
Despite the legal framework, structural barriers persist. The demand for family planning satisfied with modern methods stands at 58 percent against a 2030 target of 85 percent. Adolescents in union face 40 percent unmet need for family planning. Religious and community resistance to contraception and CSE remains significant, particularly in BARMM. Child marriage persists not because the law does not exist but because enforcement is weak, community norms are powerful, and services reaching the most vulnerable are inadequate. Poverty is the cross-cutting driver that both limits access to SRHR services and pushes families toward harmful practices as coping mechanisms.
TUSIP operates in a country where the legal framework for SRHR is largely in place but the gap between law and practice is substantial. Programs like TUSIP that combine service delivery, systems strengthening, and policy advocacy are precisely the kind of integrated response that evidence supports for closing implementation gaps. Whether the program's four-year budget and multi-partner structure can generate sustained change in the communities with the deepest unmet need depends on how effectively it reaches those who are poorest and most geographically isolated.
A 2024 study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization found that unmet need for contraception in the Philippines declined substantially following the implementation of the RPRH Act, but a persistent gap remained between the lowest and highest wealth quintiles. Forty-two percent of sexually active unmarried women lack access to their preferred contraceptive methods. TUSIP's RESPOND II component directly targets this gap through community outreach and mobile service delivery that reaches women who cannot access facility-based services.
| SRHR Issue | Current Status | TUSIP Component Addressing It |
|---|---|---|
| Unmet need for family planning | 58% demand satisfied; 12.9M women with FP need in 2023; poorest women and adolescents face highest unmet need | RESPOND II (IPPF/MSI) community outreach; UNFPA systems strengthening |
| Adolescent pregnancy | Births to girls aged 10–14 increased from 2,411 (2019) to 3,343 (2023); adolescent birth rate rising in youngest group | UNFPA: CSE with DepEd; Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) governance; adolescent SRHR programming |
| Child marriage | 460,000 girls under 18 in marriages in 2022; BARMM rates 2x national average; RA 11596 enacted but weakly enforced | UNICEF: CEFMU study; national action plan; LGU referral systems |
| GBV services | High prevalence; services not universally accessible; humanitarian settings especially underserved | RESPOND II GBV services; UNFPA DOH capacity |
| FGM/C | Practiced in Muslim communities in Mindanao and BARMM; underreported | New UNFPA/UNICEF/IPPF FGM/C programming (from 2025) |
| CSE in schools | DepEd Order 2018-031 mandates CSE but implementation inconsistent | UNFPA: DepEd partnership for full CSE implementation |
TUSIP does not operate in isolation. Its work intersects with and reinforces several other major programs and policy processes in the Philippines that readers of this site will recognize from earlier articles.
JPARAP, implemented by UNFPA, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (WHO) in Samar and Southern Leyte with Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) funding, shares implementing partners and adolescent health objectives with TUSIP, though it is funded separately. The two programs are complementary, with TUSIP providing the broader national SRHR enabling environment work while JPARAP focuses on subnational service delivery and governance strengthening in Eastern Visayas.
The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) Law is the primary domestic legal anchor for TUSIP's family planning and SRHR service delivery work. TUSIP supports the government's implementation of the RPRH Law through UNFPA and IPPF engagement with DOH, DepEd, and local health systems.
TUSIP's most significant policy outcome in the Philippines as of mid-2026 is the National Action Plan to End Child, Early, Forced Marriages and Unions, which was built on the foundation of the UNICEF-commissioned CEFMU study and drafted with UNFPA and UNICEF support. The action plan is the primary instrument for implementing RA 11596 at scale.
Approved in July 2024 with UNICEF support, the 4th National Plan of Action for Children covers child protection, education, health, and climate resilience through 2028. TUSIP's work on child marriage and adolescent SRHR aligns directly with the child protection pillar of this national plan.