London family planning summit legacy
August 9th 2012
Significant new financial pledges and other promises made at the groundbreaking Family Planning Summit held July 11 in London could have a major impact on the lives of women and girls for years to come, according to a new Guttmacher Institute analysis. Going forward, the challenge for all stakeholders will be to ensure that financial pledges made by donors and developing country governments materialize and that individual women’s needs and rights remain at the core of the implementation phase.
“The summit set ambitious goals and, to the great credit of its organizers, exceeded them,” says Susan Cohen, author of the new analysis. “The renewed political and financial commitment to international family planning is highly welcome, and millions of girls and women will reap the benefits as they become better able to achieve healthy pregnancies through proper birth timing and spacing, or to avoid pregnancy altogether. The summit provided a much-needed jolt, as family planning has been neglected as a global health priority over the past two decades.”
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Looking ahead to the nuts and bolts of the implementation efforts, Cohen argues that vigilance will be required to make sure that actions back up the commitments made. But, she notes, the initial signs are promising. Among many steps stakeholders committed to taking are:
• increasing demand and support for family planning in a way that also removes barriers to access and use;
• improving the supply and distribution of contraceptives;
• developing new and better technologies, toward the goal of expanding real choice of methods;
• monitoring and evaluating progress with a special focus on measuring improved quality of services and information to women to promote truly informed and voluntary choice; and
• focusing on supporting advocacy around sustaining and increasing funding, but also on protecting and promoting global commitments to family planning within the ICPD framework for sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
“The presence of so many dignitaries from around the globe at the summit made a powerful statement about the renewed political commitment to international family planning,” says Cohen. “But the financial commitment was surprisingly strong, too.”
Read the rest of this article: The Guttmacher Institute
Read the full Guttmacher Institute analysis
More on this issue: Reproductive health
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