2018 ICFP came to a close Thursday with a commitment from Global leaders to re-double efforts towards achieving universal access to reproductive health services through 2020 and beyond.
The 5th International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) concluded Thursday with reaffirmation of commitment by stakeholders to ensuring women and girls have access to high-quality, affordable family planning information and services.
Speakers highlighted impactful programmes that have driven progress toward the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) goal of adding 120 million contraceptive users by 2020, and called for collective action to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2030.
During the morning plenary, moderated by Beth Schlachter, Executive Director of Family Planning 2020, speakers highlighted successful country-led initiatives and discussed the future of the family planning movement as 2020 approaches.
Prof. Nicolas Meda, Minister of Health of Burkina Faso, and Quazi A.K.M. Mohiul Islam, Additional Secretary of the Medical Education and Family Welfare Division of the Mefwd and Mohfw in Bangladesh, spoke of their respective countries’ commitment to building strong health systems and expanding contraceptive access.
“Burkina Faso is on track to self-reliance and domestic resource mobilization,” said Prof. Nicolas Meda. “We are in the process of declaring family planning free at all levels…and from January 2017 to January 2018 we moved from 24.6% mCPR [modern contraceptive prevalence rate] to 30.1% mCPR.”
Burkina Faso has the highest mCPR in West Africa. The country is a regional family planning leader and birthplace of the Ouagadougou partnership, a consortium of nine countries which set and achieved a collective goal of reaching one million women with family planning services by 2015. The partnership has since expanded its goal, and aims to add 2.2 million more contraceptive users by 2030, illustrating the impact of country-led initiatives.
Despite advances in many countries, the FP2020 partnership is unlikely to meet its goal of reaching 120 million additional women with contraceptives by 2020. Speakers shared their vision for what would come next, emphasizing the importance of situating family planning within efforts to build comprehensive health systems as the community looks toward 2030, and reframing conversations around youth access to contraception.
“Along with accessibility [of contraceptives] for young people, it’s also important to increase the acceptability of contraceptive use among youth,” said Manasa Priya Vasudevan, FP2020 Youth.
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Reference Group Member and Programme Manager at the YP Foundation. “This requires the international community to recognize that adolescents are sexual beings…We need to inject diversity into our international community so vulnerable groups [and young people] can come to the table.”
“We wouldn’t have FP2020 if we didn’t have ambitious targets [and] we shouldn’t look at missed targets as a bad thing, as long as we are adding and iterating on new targets going forward,” said Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AVAC, before highlighting the importance of working together across the family planning and HIV communities to achieve collective goals. “At the end of the day,” he continued, “we need to create a method mix for family planning and HIV prevention that is truly about informed choice.”
During key presentations of the day, speakers also addressed goals, gaps, achievements and the agenda for family planning.
“In the future, family planning goal models could potentially be used at the decentralization level to identify subnational goals and customize plans of action,” said Dr. Felix Sayinzoga, Division Manager, Maternal Child and Community Health at the Rwanda Biomedical Center.
The increase of service provision through secondary health posts and Community Health Workers, as well as public family planning campaigns, have proven effective and replicable.
At the closing ceremony, parliamentarians from 20 countries committed to ensuring the right of all individuals to access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. Faith leaders also committed to support quality family planning education and service delivery, and to work with governments and stakeholders to enact policies that would expand contraceptive access, especially among youth.
Young leaders also called on conference attendees to remain accountable to their commitments, and on governments and donors for greater transparency in decision-making and funding to support young advocates.
The conference co-hosts also announced the winners of the 2018 Excellence in Leadership for Family Planning (EXCELL) Awards, recognizing remarkable contributions by countries, organizations and individuals to expanding access to voluntary family planning information and services.
Uganda and Burkina Faso won country award, Profamilia won Organisation award, Save the Children Yemen won Team Award, while Individual Award went to Minister of Health, Burkina Faso, Prof. Nicholas Meda.
The conference concluded with a musical performance after remarks from the Minister of State of Rwanda, Patrick Ndimubanzi.
“We loved the energy [of the young people], we enjoyed hearing your perspectives and valuable contributions,” said Minister of State of Rwanda, Patrick Ndimubanzi. “This has been a fantastic opportunity to learn from each other and discuss the unfinished agenda. We’ve come a long way, but there is still much to do.”
More than 3,700 people – including over 600 youth leaders – participated in the 2018 ICFP, making it the largest ICFP in history. The next ICFP will be held in 2020.
THE ICFP has been held biennially since 2009, the ICFP serves as a strategic inflection point for the family planning community worldwide. It provides an opportunity for scientists, researchers, policymakers and advocates to disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes and identify next steps toward reaching the goal of enabling an additional 120 million women to access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020.
The 2018 ICFP was co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, based at the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Republic of Rwanda’s Ministry of Health.
The 2018 ICFP was made possible with support from the ICFP Core Organizing Group—United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DfID), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), United Nations Foundation (UNF), Government of the Netherlands, and Marie Stopes International (MSI)—as well as the International Steering Committee, comprised more than 50 partner organizations, and the National Steering Committee of the ICFP.
