Access to information on family-planning options is important. But that information needs to be delivered in a way that’s reliable, judgment-free, and easily accessible.

This is where technology, innovation, and public-private partnerships can come in, said Siddharth Chatterjee, resident coordinator of the United Nations in Kenya, explaining that there are lessons to be learned from Kenya around maternal health and family planning. The country has already exceeded its target of increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate among adolescent women from 40% to 50% by 2020.

“Today it’s the world of innovation, which is right here at our doorstep. The ecosystem has changed,” he said, speaking from the U.N. office in Nairobi.

One such example of how health care delivery has been changing is askNivi. Accessed via text messaging, Facebook Messenger, and soon WhatsApp, users are able to ask questions about their sexual and reproductive health and receive a prompt artificial intelligence-generated response, or even a referral for products, services, and health care facilities. Individuals can also get back in touch with Nivi to let them know what their experience at the health care facility was like and how they feel about the products or services they received.

askNivi chatbot in use.

Commonly asked questions tend to be about side effects of contraception —15% of all questions asked by females and 11% of males focused on this — and contraception recommendations — 13% of questions asked by females and 4% by males requested this. The premise of askNivi is that a woman should be given a minimum of three birth control options to consider before opting for the best one for her.

For Agutu and her friends, the service means access to reliable information on questions that could be difficult to ask others. “[Before] I would just Google, because maybe some questions are just too hard to ask some people — maybe somebody might judge you or you don’t have close friends,” she said.