Uganda to benefit from multi-million dollar campaign

By Anne Mugisa and Cathy Mwesigwa in Kuala Lumpur  

Uganda will be the first African country to benefit from a new multi-million dollar global campaign to increase demand for family planning services and information.

The new campaign dubbed, “It takes two” was announced on the first day of the 3rd Women Deliver Global conference on girls’ and women’s rights in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Over 5000 delegates from international Development Agencies, funding organisations, philanthropists, government representations, NGOs and Media are in Kuala Lumpur to share best practices, identify opportunities and challenges to improving maternal health and universal access to reproductive health and rights.

The campaign, a partnership between the Global Poverty Project and Women Deliver recently launched in the USA and will start in Uganda in a few months. It aims at raising awareness of, increasing demand for and improving access to family planning services and information.

The two organisations will work with other partners in the campaign which aims to motivate young women and men to demand for family planning information and services.

Three out of ten women in Uganda who need to stop or space their next pregnancy are not using any contraception. There are about 700,000 unwanted pregnancies in Uganda every year.

According to Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, Africa Regional Director, Partners in Population and Development, Uganda needs a total of US$20m annually for its contraception needs.

“Currently Uganda is spending about US$10m annually. The presidential pledge made at the London Summit on Family Planning will reduce the shortfall,” he says.

President Yoweri  Museveni  at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning  pledged to provide an additional  US$5m annually for reproductive health supplies. Museveni’s pledge will be included in the budget starting the next budget.
After Uganda, the campaign will be gradually spread out to other countries which include Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa among other countries.

“We don’t want governments to forget commitments they made in 2012. We want to remind the people of their government’s commitments,” said Jill Sheffield, the president, Women Deliver.

Globally 222 million poor women lack family planning services. The target is to reduce that number by 120 million by 2020. The annual global budget for contraception stands at US$8.1bn and at the moment only US$2.6bn has been committed.
The campaigners also want to hold the US to contribute US$1bn annually until 2020.

At the same conference, development experts and researchers warned that there is a connection between denial of women’s reproductive health rights and violence, political instability and extremism. The experts quoted several studies which they said pointed out the danger of denied reproductive health rights.

The absence of reproductive health services, they said lead to large pools of unplanned populations that are ill prepared for development and have to fight for the limited resources. They said that girls are often left out of the picture when issues including health are discussed which leads to omission of some of the vital services like reproductive health services that have a serious impact on society.

As a result, the vicious cycle of poverty continues yet it can be broken by the simple interventions like planned spaced families.

According to Dr. Musinguzi, investment in family planning would save countries a lot in costs of direct and indirect consequences. For example, he said, investment of US$1 in family planning would save the country loss of US$4 in dealing with the consequences of lack of the service.

The experts called on governments and societies to deal with harmful practices and beliefs that impede access and provision of family planning services.

“We need to work for changes that end gross injustices that perpetuate inequalities. Investing in girls and women is the smart thing to do. We need to look at the women’s reproductive and sexual health” Lakshmi Puri, deputy executive director of UNWOMEN said.

Speaking at the opening forum, Jeni Klugman, the World Bank Director, Gender and Development, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management observed that gender gaps have narrowed during the last century. More girls are getting into schools and completing primary education, more women are getting into positions of leadership, however challenges still persist which the experts attribute to lack of prioritisation of women’s family planning and other rights.

“Women labour force participation has grown by only 1% in 30 years, earning disparities persist and are hurting women and their families and so does their lack of voice in household matters,” she said.

She noted that poor reproductive health contributes to the challenge which in turn impacts national and global development.

Klugman said that gender equality and reproductive health are linked and that they have a correlation with high maternal and child deaths and affect future generations.