Uganda pledges more funding for family planning at the launch of FP2030 global masterplan

Uganda has pledged to increase its annual funding for family planning activities.

According to Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Health Services at the Ministry of Health, the Ugandan government has pledged to annually ringfence 50% of domestic resources allocated for the procurement, warehousing, and distribution of family planning commodities by 2025

Leaders from across the reproductive health space including Melinda French Gates and UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem gathered at the global event LAUNCHING FP2030: Moving Forward Together to Transform the Future introducing the transformed FP2030 partnership and its new leadership alongside the first FP2030 commitments from national governments and donors.

The inclusive and wide-reaching new scope of the partnership was outlined in FP2030’s latest report, The FP2030 Transition. Uganda’s Director of Health Services Dr Charles Olaro announced the Ugandan government’s commitment to transform the lives of Uganda’s women, girls and communities through improved access to family planning.

At a global gathering marking the launch of the new decade of the Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) partnership, Uganda’s Director of Health Services, Dr Charles Olaro, joined leaders from across the family planning and global health fields as they pledged major new commitments towards ensuring that every woman and girl across the world has access to life-saving family planning services.

FP2030, a global partnership that supports the reproductive rights of women and girls, convened the event where more than $3.1 billion in funding was committed towards widening access to family planning over the next 5 years. Major commitments came from organizations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Fòs Feminista. National government commitments were also celebrated, with countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo sharing their inspiring pledges towards sustaining global action in family planning alongside Uganda. The key commitments made by the Ugandan government were:

• By 2025, the Uganda government pledges to increase Uganda’s modern contraceptive prevalence rate for all women from 30.4% to 39.6% and reduce the unmet need from 17% to 15%
• The government of Uganda also commits to annually allocating at least 10% of Maternal and Child Health resources to adolescent responsive health services by July 2025
• The Ugandan government further pledges to annually ringfence 50% of domestic resources allocated for the procurement, warehousing, and distribution of family planning commodities by 2025

This brings the total number of commitment makers to 46 as of November 2021, with the event marking the official start of the new decade of the FP2030 partnership. This follows its previous iteration as the FP2020 partnership which was launched in 2012 and in the years since has overseen some remarkable progress, notably an increase in the number of people using contraception by 60 million over nine years (doubling in the number of modern contraceptive users in 13 low-income countries), preventing more than 121 million unintended pregnancies, 21 million unsafe abortions, and 125,000 maternal deaths also prevented in 2019 alone. Uganda’s modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) for all women rose from 21.3% in 2012 to 30.4% in 2020, and the country added 1.6 million users of modern contraception over this period of time.

Building on the strengths and successes of FP2020, the new FP2030 partnership is now poised to embrace a more accessible and inclusive global partnership, with a new Governing Board made up of representatives from governments, multilateral agencies, donors, global NGOs and civil society and youth organizations, with a focus on diversity, particularly in terms of gender, age, geography, sexual orientation and background, including young people under the age of 30. In addition, in 2022, FP2030 will open regional hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with greater direction set by regional and national leadership. The locations of the first of these, the two FP2030 Africa hubs, will be announced in early 2022.

The high-profile event saw important discussions take place on a range of topics, including the need to innovate in family planning amidst global crises like #Covid-19, and preserving and sustaining family planning funding amidst global cuts in funding and supply chains. FP2030 and its partners highlighted the critical nature of access to family planning, an essential right for every woman and girl no matter where she lives. By giving women and girls the ability to shape and make their own choices about family planning, there are proven improvements for both health-related outcomes and long-term social and economic progress.

“The pandemic has demonstrated the centrality of health and that global challenges require global solutions. The launch of Family Planning 2030 is an opportunity to expand and improve our collaborative work on family planning. Family planning and contraception, including postpartum and post-abortion services, must be recognized as essential health services and as critical for reducing gender inequalities,” commented Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Uganda’s Director of Health Services, Dr Charles Olaro, outlined the importance of family planning when making the commitment, noting that the Ugandan government is renewing its commitment to FP2030 because it believes women and girls have the best chance to succeed when they can make their own decisions about their fertility.

FP2030’s latest report, Becoming FP2030, was also released alongside the event. The first of two reports being released this year, it provides a deeper look into the vision powering the new decade of partnership, a vision that will be focusing on five key areas: policy, data, financing, gender norms, and system responsiveness. Outlined in this is the rationale behind the new regional hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which will strengthen the partnership’s ability to provide support to key commitment makers representing communities in these locations.

The report also sets out the partnership’s new approach, which is deeply rooted in transparency and accessibility, with FP2030 planning to deepen their engagement with youth and other underserved groups, including people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. The narrative provided by The FP2030 Transition sets the scene for FP2030’s data report, due to be released in December, which will provide a comprehensive analysis of the current state of family planning worldwide.