Winners of First-Ever Global
Humanitarian Awards for Women’s and Children’s Health Honored Nusa Dua,
Indonesia (25 January 2016) – His Excellency Joko “Jokowi” Widodo,
President of the Republic of Indonesia, and thousands of government,
health and development leaders from around the world gathered today in
Indonesia for the opening of the fourth International Conference on
Family Planning (ICFP).
Co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population
and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health and the National Population and Family Planning Board of
Indonesia (BKKBN), the conference is centered on the theme of “Global
Commitments, Local Actions.”
At the opening ceremony, Jokowi; Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin,
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of
UNFPA; Dr. Christopher Elias, President of the Global Development
Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and numerous global
leaders came together to discuss the global status of family planning
and call for urgent action to increase access to family planning
services worldwide.
During the ceremony, Jokowi and Elias also presented the first-ever
Global Humanitarian Awards for Women’s and Children’s Health. The awards
recognize individuals for their tremendous contributions and commitment
to advancing maternal and child health and well-being, especially
family planning, in communities around the world.
As part of the presentation of the Global Humanitarian Awards, Alvaro
Bermejo, Executive Director for Health at the Children’s Investment
Fund Foundation (CIFF), also announced a new $30 million initiative
called Adolescents 360, co-funded with the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
User-centereddesign
The four-year project will include approaches such as user-centered
design to understand adolescent health needs and boost girls’ access to
contraceptives in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Nigeria. The initiative aims to
find a model to increase voluntary, modern contraceptive use and reduce
unintended pregnancy among girls between the ages of 15 and 19.
“I wish that at this ICFP, we can discuss the main foundations
necessary to build the planet that we want [by 2030],” said His
Excellency Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia. “A
[future] that ensures all women and girls are empowered to choose
whether and when they want to have children and space their births, so
that mothers and their babies have better opportunities for better
lives.”
“The Government of Indonesia is working hard to revitalize our family
planning program [because] we know that the challenges facing
Indonesian families in the future will [only] be greater, especially
when it comes to population issues… we also encourage local governments
to raise awareness and make family planning a priority in every
municipality and village across Indonesia,” Jokowi continued.
“I believe that to achieve the (Sustainable Development Goals), we
have to take local action… In order to sustain economic growth,
investments in family planning are absolutely necessary… I want to
invite all global leaders to take real action to bring about healthy
mothers, healthy children and healthy and prosperous families – because
only by doing this can we make Planet Earth a better place to live,”
Jokowi said in his closing statement.
According to the most recent global progress report released by
Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), a global partnership focused on enabling
an additional 120 million women to access voluntary contraception by
2020, in the last three years, 24.4 million more women and girls who
want to avoid or delay a pregnancy have begun using modern
contraceptives in the world’s poorest countries.
Contraceptionmethod
This brings the total of women using a modern method of contraception
in FP2020’s 69 target countries to 290.6 million. However, FP2020 has
set annual benchmarks to measure family planning progress, and the most
recent numbers revealed that modern contraceptive use is behind 2015
projections by 10 million. Despite recent progress, millions of women
still cannot access the family planning information and tools they need.
“The family planning data and evidence point to concrete steps we can
take as a community to get back on track to meet our FP2020 goal,” said
Chris Elias, President of Global Development at the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, in his speech at the opening ceremony. “Now we must
ask ourselves what more we can do to align our efforts to ensure all
women have the information and tools they need to time and space their
pregnancies.”
Family planning will play a critical role in realizing the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the new development agenda for
the next 15 years, adopted in September at the United Nations General
Assembly – and reducing the global unmet need for family planning
services could save an estimated 1 in 4 women from deaths related to
pregnancy or childbirth and prevent 1.1 million infant deaths each year.
The 2016 ICFP will serve as a platform for global partners to revisit
global commitments to family planning and accelerate progress towards
the FP2020 goal.
“Family planning is about women’s rights and their capacity to make
decisions about their health and well-being, contributing to the
objectives of FP2020,” said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin,
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of
UNFPA. “It is a most significant investment to promote human capital
development, combat poverty and harness a demographic dividend, thus
contributing to equitable and sustainable economic development within
the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Policymakers and advocates
In the following days of the conference, scientists, researchers,
policymakers and advocates attending the ICFP will discuss the latest
trends, challenges, innovations and research in the effort to increase
access to family planning around the world.
Held biennially since 2009, the ICFP serves as a strategic inflection
point for the family planning community worldwide. It provides an
opportunity for scientists, researchers, policymakers and advocates to
disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes and identify next steps
toward reaching the goal of enabling an additional 120 million women to
access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020.
The 2016 ICFP is co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute
for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health and the National Population and Family Planning
Board of Indonesia (BKKBN). The conference is made possible through the
ICFP Core Group—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,
UNFPA, USAID, FP2020, the International Planned Parenthood Federation
(IPPF), Marie Stopes International (MSI) and the UN Foundation—as well
as the International Steering Committee and National Steering Committee
of the ICFP. By Morenike Taire
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