More Countries and Partners Join Global Effort to Expand Voluntary Access to Contraceptives

December 9th, 2014

Originally posted by Family Planning 2020
Five new commitments to Family Planning 2020 will improve health and drive economic development in the world’s poorest countries.
Family Planning 2020 also announces Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning.
Washington, DC – December 9, 2014: Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), the global partnership dedicated to improving access to family planning information, services and supplies, today announced three additional African nations – Burundi, Cameroon and Togo – made commitments that will enable more women to decide, freely and for themselves, whether and when to have children. The new additions increased the total number of focus countries making pledges to FP2020 to 32. Further commitments to support the achievement of FP2020’s goal through funding and programming were made by The Brush Foundation and EngenderHealth.
FP2020 worked with a range of international partners to develop its Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning, which describes 10 dimensions of human rights that are critical to growing sustainable, equitable, and effective programs with lasting impact. Every partner that commits to working with FP2020 also commits to embracing a rights-based approach to family planning.
“These new and very welcome pledges demonstrate that the global community is still inspired by the vision set out at the London Summit on Family Planning two years ago,” said Beth Schlachter, Director of FP2020. “In 2013, more than eight million additional women and girls in the world’s 69 poorest countries gained access to modern methods of contraception compared to the previous year. As more countries, donor agencies and service providers pledge to FP2020, we continue drive progress toward our goal of reaching an additional 120 million women and girls with high quality, modern forms of contraception by the year 2020.”
The new national family planning pledges from Burundi, Cameroon and Togo focus on policy, funding, and service delivery commitments that are critical to increasing access for more women and girls.
Burundi committed to increase the country’s modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) to 40% by 2020, a 28% increase on 2010’s rate and to double the number of users of modern contraception from 2012 to more than 644,000 individuals by 2015. The government of Burundi aims to create a national population board, which will integrate population, health and environmental objectives; increase government allocations to family planning by 10% year on year from 2015; coordinate financial mechanisms to improve engagement with donors and encourage greater public-private partnerships to expand family planning service delivery points; and improve family planning services by training health providers.
Cameroon has pledged to realize its Strategic Plan for Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health for 2014-2020 and increase mCPR from 16.1% to 30% by 2020. The government of Cameroon aims to increase its budgetary allocation for reproductive health to 5% by 2020; offer subsidies on family planning services to more vulnerable groups, such as adolescents and women with disabilities; and ensure commodity security, so that stock-outs of vital contraceptive supplies do not occur.
Togo’s goal is to increase mCPR from 13.2% in 2010 to 24.3% by 2017. The government of Togo aims to provide a specific financial grant for the purchase of contraceptive products; scale up best practice interventions in reproductive health and family planning service delivery; and develop partnerships with the private sector to provide family planning services.
The Brush Foundation contributed $30,000 toward global family planning efforts in 2014 including funds to FP2020's Rapid Response Mechanism that disburses grants for short-term, high-impact projects in response to urgent or unforeseen needs.

EngenderHealth will embark on a major communications and advocacy campaign aimed at US women to inspire their support of women in developing countries that want, but do not have, access to contraception and safe childbirth. It also pledged to develop a framework to guide provision of family planning services, ensuring they respect, protect, and fulfill individuals’ human rights.

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For further information contact:
USA: Zahra Aziz, FP2020
zaziz@familyplanning2020.org
T: +1 (917) 696-6181

UK: Cathy Bartley, Bartley Robbs Communications
cathy.bartley@bartley-robbs.co.uk
T: +44 208 694 9138/M: +44 7958 561 671

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