Summit promises 4.6 billion for family planning

By Catherine Mwesigwa Kizza

The London summit on Family Planning ended on Wednesday with global leaders pledging 4.6 billion dollars towards boosting family planning for 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries by 2020.

The summit hosted by DFID and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation had targeted to raise 4.3bn and achieved the target with donors and governments of developing countries pledging 2.6bn and developing countries 2bn dollars to the cause.

Speaking as one of the key note panelists at the summit, President Yoweri Museveni pledged, on behalf of government, to commit 5m dollars, up from 1m, for the next five years towards improving reproductive health services.

"This is a small figure, [but it] will give us a higher threshold to deal with this problem eventually,” .Museveni said.

He added that government will improve the distribution of reproductive health supplies to public and private units as a means to prevent stock-out of family planning supplies. 

He called for the sensitization particularly of peasant women about child spacing for the good health of the babies to be born and for the mothers.

He said the government was committed to ensuring an environment where women can exercise their choices and access services.

Other commitments from African governments included that of the Senegalese Government  that pledged to double their investment in Family Planning.

 “Senegal has one of the lowest Contraceptive Prevalence Rates in the world. We want to change it and achieve 27% by 2015,” Dr. Awa Marie Coll-Seck- Senegal Minister of Health said.

Nigeria Minister of Health committed to meeting the country’s unmet need for reproductive health services. 

He said that if achieved 31,000 maternal deaths would be averted and one million lives saved by 2015.

Nigeria pledged to treble its investment and will spend 33.4m dollars, a 300% increment, over the next four years.

Malawi with its slogan, “No parenthood without adulthood” said they were using Family Planning as a strategy to meet all the Millennium Development Goals. They committed to raising the legal age of marriage to 18.

The president admitted he was ashamed to mention the country’s current constitutional age for marriage. They also committed to raising the Contraceptive Prevalence Rates to 60%. 

Melinda Gates described the summit as an important milestone in the history of family planning but also marked a new beginning for all to deliver on commitments made.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $560 million between now and 2020 to the cause.

Gates urged partners to "innovate" on behalf of women and stressed the importance of women-centric contraceptives like Intrauterine devices, injectables and implants.

Heikki Holmas, Norway’s Minister of International Development highlighted the role of women in causing social economic change. He dispelled the common belief that Norway’s development is only attributable to oil.

He said Norway transformed from one of the poorest countries of Europe 100 years ago to a developed country because of women empowerment. Today three out of four women in Norway are employed.  

“If you don’t have oil your fortune lies in women and education,” he said.