Leaders should invest in quality youth-friendly sexual reproductive health services Youths from across the world attend a Youth Pre-conference leading to International Conference on Family Planning.

Roselyne Sachiti Features Editor
YOUNG family planning advocates from around the world have called on global leaders to invest in quality, youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.

The calls come at a time the world is entering a particularly critical moment where more than half of the world’s 1.2 billion young people (aged 10-19) live in developing countries and many still lack access to contraceptives.

Sharing their personal experiences and beliefs at the Fifth International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2018) in Kigali, Rwanda, nearly 30 ICFP Youth Leaders and family planning experts illustrated the barriers young people face while trying to prevent unintended pregnancies, including misinformation, stigma and provider bias, stock-outs and high costs.

Their stories also explored related topics including sexuality, menstruation and gender equality.

“I have had friends who got pregnant when they were just 16,” said Baye Leinyuy Bongla, an ICFP youth leader and medical doctor from Cameroon.

“This experience changes your life completely. We need to start talking (about access to family planning) so fewer girls have to go through bad experiences. Isn’t it wrong to deny a person the ability to make decisions about their body and live a healthy life?”

According to new data released by the Guttmacher Institute this month, 36 million young women aged 15–19 in developing regions are sexually active and want to avoid pregnancy, but most are not using modern contraceptives.

The report notes that roughly half of the 9.6 million pregnancies among this group each year are unintended, and about half of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion – most of which are unsafe.

“Investing in sexual and reproductive health care that meets adolescents’ needs is critical to ensuring young people are able to make voluntary and informed choices regarding contraception and relationships,” said Dr Ann Biddlecom, Director of International Research at the Guttmacher Institute.

“Young women and men must have access to youth-friendly contraceptive services that include the provision of a wide range of method options, as well as medically accurate counselling and information.”

Youth advocates are at the forefront of this effort, and have implemented creative strategies to eliminate stigma, train providers and overcome barriers young people face in accessing reproductive health services in their local communities.

During the plenary, Youth Division representative with the African Union, Kokou S. Djagadou, described how as a provider he works to ensure young people have the tools they need to prevent unwanted pregnancies, by fighting against misinformation and addressing societal beliefs about young women’s sexuality.

The plenary closed with a speech from Kojo Lokko, Deputy Director of The Challenge Initiative, about the young women he has met through his work, their hopes for the future, and the role of family planning in realising these goals.

“My daily work is not about high-level meetings or international conferences like this. It’s about empowering girls to ask questions, plan their futures, and access contraception without any fear or judgement,” said Mr Lokko.

Wednesday’s plenary came on the heels of a two-day ICFP Youth Pre-conference, which gathered more than 600 youth leaders from over 40 countries to exchange resources to support advocacy, research and programmes in their home communities.

This is the largest contingent of youth leaders in the history of ICFP. The plenary was followed by the 2018 ICFP FPitchfest, a live action competition where youth advocates competed for funding to bring their ideas for transforming the future of family planning to life.

Rwandese, representatives from Indonesia, Madagascar and Mozambique shared their progress and lessons learnt, and reflected on common challenges they face when it comes to improving access to family planning services for adolescents and young people.

“The collaboration of Rwanda Ministry of Health with faith-based health facilities has played a huge role in raising awareness for all contraceptive methods – and this saves lives. Now, women in need of modern contraceptives are referred to outreach services and women seeking natural approaches that align with their faith know their options,” said Division Manager at Rwanda Biomedical Centre, Dr Felix Sayinzoga.

At the conference, several huge funding packages were also unveiled.

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development announced that UK Aid would invest over £200 million (approximately US$260 million) in a new flagship programme Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH), which will ensure six million couples can reliably gain access to life-saving voluntary contraception in some of the world’s poorest countries every year of the programme.

Canada’s Minister of International Development, Marie-Claude Bibeau, also announced up to Can$104.4 million (US$78.8million) in funding for projects that take a comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including universal access to family planning and access to safe and legal abortion.

This investment is part of Canada’s $650 million commitment to address gaps in funding for SRHR, announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in March 2017.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched an US$18 million family planning fund, managed by UNFPA Supplies for the Ouagadougou Partnership countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo): $15 million for a commodity matching fund and, $3 million for accompanying technical assistance.

The commodity matching fund will allocate two dollars for every additional dollar that these countries invest into family planning from domestic resources, based on the previous year’s allocation. This funding follows an announcement from Melinda Gates in Burkina Faso earlier in 2018.

The 2018 ICFP will conclude today with a final day of programming, focused on progress needed to advance the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) goals.

Sessions and speakers are expected to highlight successful family planning programs at the national and local levels and demonstrate the personal impact these efforts have had on women and girls.

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