View the latest family planning advocacy news from our partners.
Ten HIV Care and Treatment Clinics (CTCs) on the Unguja and Pemba Islands of Zanzibar have strengthened family planning service quality and two are offering family planning services for the first time, following a directive issued by Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health (ZMOH) last year. The directive required the islands’ CTCs to integrate family planning with HIV services and capture service data in the District Health Information System (DHIS2).
Seven new briefs by Advance Family Planning (AFP) partners highlight country achievements in Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda as well as AFP’s six-country effort on media advocacy. The briefs showcase how advocates and government partners have improved family planning funding and services to date, and protected those gains within the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2020, the Nursing and Midwifery Services Department (NMSD) of the Ministry of Heath, Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children (MoHCDEC) approved the inclusion of adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) content in the midwifery curriculum for all diploma programs by 2022. The three-year midwifery curriculum currently has eleven modules, none of which address reproductive health or AYSRH.
On February 4, 2021, Dr. Hasto Wardoyo, Chairperson of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), reaffirmed Indonesian government support for expanding advocacy as it formulates new commitments to the Family Planning 2030 partnership. The statement came during a virtual event to recognize progress made under Family Planning 2020 and conclude the decade-long advocacy partnership under Advance Family Planning (AFP).
On June 4, 2020, the County Assembly of Kisumu allocated 60 million Kenyan Shillings (US $560,000) for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) for the first time. Two months later, on August 12, 2020, the Kisumu County Department of Health launched its first ever family planning costed implementation plan (2019-2023) (CIP).
In June 2020, Tanzania reported improvement in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health, and nutrition (RMNCAH+N) by surpassing four out of five project development objectives (PDOs) of the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF). This success puts Tanzania on track to absorb the remaining 203.2 billion Tanzanian shillings (TZS) (US $88.4 million) of the 703.5 billion TZS ($306 million) allocated by the GFF before the project ends in June 2021.
The Advance Family Planning (AFP) initiative is pleased to launch What Works to Support Youth-led Advocacy: Advancing Contraceptive Access for Young People. This brief describes AFP’s decade of experience in advocating alongside and on behalf of young people, identifies lessons learned, and recommends ways to support youth advocates.
In September 2020, cultural leaders from the Lango Kingdom in northern Uganda for the first time signed a joint/group resolution to promote family planning. The resolution, which impacts all eight districts in the Lango region, will focus on educating communities about family planning and integrating family planning into the kingdom’s budget and development plan. Lango Kingdom’s cultural leaders are custodians of local traditions and important influencers of community values and health seeking behaviors.
On July 13, 2020, Kenya’s Department of Family Health approved a new national training package for pharmacists and pharmaceutical technologists that includes subcutaneous and intramuscular DMPA (DMPA-SC and DMPA-IM). The comprehensive curriculum integrates family planning, HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and other related services. Printing began in September 2020 and plans for roll out are underway.
Seven regions in Tanzania’s Lake and Western Zones, previously low-performing with respect to family planning, are now showing notable progress in the provision of postpartum family planning (PPFP) services. The USAID-funded Boresha Afya project recently reported improvement in PPFP uptake—the percentage of postpartum women who accepted a modern family planning method among all women who delivered in project-supported facilities within the last six months. All seven of the project’s regions increased PPFP uptake since 2015, the year before the project began [1,2].
Between May 2019 and August 2020, 10 companies in the Khulna division of Bangladesh committed to provide on-site family planning counseling and services in partnership with their district’s family planning office. The companies, eight located in Bagerhat district and two in Khulna district, are allocating space and time for their employees to receive services during the work day. District governments are supplying commodities and supporting visits from health providers twice a week.
In April 2020, Hon. Ummy Mwalimu, Minister of Health, announced that Tanzania procured 90% of the contraceptives needed [1] for fiscal year 2019-2020 (FY 19-20) [2]. The Government of Tanzania, United Nations Population Fund, U.S. Agency for International Development, United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and Global Fund collectively funded procurement of the commodities.