Africa: Family Planning Regional Hub Launched
By Mary Hearty
The Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) initiative is committed to accelerate coordination and improve access to maternal child health as well as sexual and reproductive health for women and girls in East and Southern Africa, through the newly launched regional hub at the Amref Health Africa headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.
The new regional hub which will be hosted by the Amref Health Africa in Nairobi, Kenya and is one of the four new offices to be launched this year. Other hubs are in North America and Europe.
The new hubs will help build momentum for the rights-based family planning movement at community, national, regional and global levels; advancing advocacy and accountability for family planning policy development and implementation; leveraging partnerships with governments, civil society and youth-led organizations to create synergies that will maximize opportunities for growth and impact and linking these efforts to a strong regional and global network.
“It is our goal to foster a truly country-led commitment process not only by ensuring countries can set their own goals, but also to facilitate better and more consistent connections with other FP2030 partners in the region, creating stronger programs and accountability mechanisms,” Dr Samukeliso Dube, Executive Director, FP2030 said.
“We believe regional hubs put countries and regional partners in the driver’s seat for agenda setting, monitoring progress and collaboration, and we see this collaboration as an important step towards achieving FP2030’s vision of working together for a future where women and girls everywhere have the freedom and ability to lead health lives, make their own informed decisions about using contraception and having children, and participate as equals in society and its development.”
The East and Southern Africa Regional Hub will support initiatives in Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
FP2030, with Amref’s support, will be calling on governments, civil society and organizations and other implementers of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights to implement FP2030 commitments and accelerate interventions and policies that offer quality of care for women and girls, ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health care, services and commodities.
Kenya has already launched its own national commitment, with the government pledging to increase the modern contraceptive prevalence rate for married women from 58% to 64% by 2030 and reduce unmet need for family planning for all women from 14% to 10% by 2030.