On the 3rd November, Uganda launched the FP2030 commitments. The objective of the launch was to create awareness, understanding and momentum leading to the global launch that is due November 18th 2021. Uganda has made several commitments towards the FP 2030 to address the gaps in ensuring access to family planning commodities.
Reproductive health Uganda alongside other civil society organizations will partner with the Ministry of Health to see the commitments to fruition.
Speaking at the launch, the minister of Health Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng underlined that Government is keen on implementing its commitments on family planning. She said the focus should now change to the boy child.
Speaking at the launch of the Uganda Family Planning 2030 Commitments in Kampala on Wednesday, Aceng said boys ‘need to know the dangers of making a teenage girl pregnant’. ‘The focus has been on the recipient of the pregnancy and not the giver.’
Over the past nine years, governments, civil society, multilateral organizations, donors, the private sector and the research community, have come together around an ambitious goal: to enable 120 million additional women and girls to use modern contraception by 2020. Working together in partnership, much has been achieved, but more remains to be done.
The global family planning community agreed that the gains of the last nine years should be sustained by extending this pivotal partnership. Through a global consultation, stakeholders from around the world provided their input on the future of family planning. Together, the community created a shared vision for 2030 that builds on progress achieved to date, adapts the partnership in response to the lessons of the first nine years and positions us to achieve the future women and girls around the world are asking for.
The collective feedback has formed the basis of a vision, guiding principles, and focus areas. With this foundation, and informed by the family planning community consultation, the new partnership will be built over the course of 2021.
The Uganda Family Planning 2030 Commitments include the following:
– to increase equitable access and voluntary use of modern contraceptive methods for all women and couples
– to increase funding for adolescent sexual and reproductive health programmes
– to ensure contraceptive commodity security
– to strengthen the policy and enabling environment for family planning
– to strengthen the policy and enabling environment for family planning
– to strengthen family planning data use at all levels
– to address family planning myths and misconceptions through evidence-based sexual and behavioral change communication and advocacy
Guiding Principles of the commitments
- Voluntary, person-centered, rights-based approaches, with equity at the core: This guiding principle reflects the fundamental belief that individuals should be able to freely make choices that reflect their desires and needs. Every decision, action, and investment made by the partnership will reflect this belief – that each person has the same right to quality family planning, regardless of their geography, socioeconomic status, gender, or culture.
- Empowering women and girls and engaging men, boys, and communities: Positive male inclusion is needed to truly transform normalization of family planning and at the same time share the burden of the decisions and implications of family planning. This must happen in tandem with empowerment of women and girls to create true equity.
- Building intentional and equitable partnerships with adolescents, youth, and marginalized populations to meet their needs, including for accurate and disaggregated data collection and use: These populations have been consistently underserved, so the partnership commits to prioritizing them in all future work.
- Country-led global partnerships, with shared learning and mutual accountability for commitments and results: Country commitments drive progress with support from regional and global stakeholders for implementation, coordination, and accountability.
