On eve of International Conference on Family Planning, Kenyan Ministry of Health & global partners showcase Kenya’s commitment to giving more women access to contraceptive options
7 November 2013, Nairobi, Kenya – Today, Prof. Fred H.K. Segor and other senior officials gathered in Nairobi to showcase Kenya’s progress toward expanding contraceptive access and options and to highlight innovative public-private partnerships that are accelerating efforts to increase access to voluntary and quality family planning to save and improve the lives of women and infants. Additional speakers at the event represented the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Bayer HealthCare and Jhpiego, an affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University.
This gathering comes just over a year after the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, where global leaders committed to provide an additional 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries with voluntary access to modern contraceptive information, services and supplies by 2020. Kenya pledged to protect women’s rights to family planning by securing additional financial resources and implementing strategies to reach the poorest and hardest-to-reach segments of the population.
“Kenya has long recognized that family planning is a key driver of development, leading to healthier, better educated and more productive populations,” said Prof. Fred H.K. Segor, Principal Secretary, Kenya Ministry of Health. “This is why our constitution protects the right of every woman to access family planning, and why access to contraceptives is an essential component of Kenya’s national development framework, Vision 2030.”
Kenya’s Progress
Today, the Government of Kenya announced it is nearly on track to achieve its goal of reaching a 56 percent modern contraceptive prevalence rate by 2015. Last October, the country launched a 2012-2016 National Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan, which outlines its priority strategies for increasing contraceptive prevalence and the costs needed to implement them. In fiscal year 2013/ 2014, the Government of Kenya committed USD 9 million to family planning programs.
Currently, one in four women in Kenya who wishes to delay or prevent pregnancy does not have access to modern contraceptives. The poorest women and those with the lowest levels of education report the highest unmet need. In fact, almost half of the poorest women report that their most recent pregnancy was unplanned. Family planning is one of the most cost-effective methods to improve the health of women and provides them with the tools to plan their families and their lives.
To reach the most marginalized populations with improved access to affordable contraceptive options, the government will expand its voucher system to provide easier access to reproductive health services, including family planning, in five rural and urban districts in Kenya. The government has also committed to reaching more youth with comprehensive reproductive health information and other social services by creating Youth Empowerment Centers across Kenya. Additionally, Kenya has changed its guidelines to allow community health workers to provide injectable contraceptives.
“Kenya’s leadership on FP2020 has been exemplary and can serve as a model for other countries across Africa and around the world to follow,” said Elizabeth Lule, Director of Family Planning at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Efforts to expand contraceptive access and options are guided by the belief that all women, no matter where they live, should be empowered to plan their own lives and shape their own futures.”
Public-Private Partnerships
Since the Summit, innovative public-private partnerships have played a key role in expanding women’s access to a range of contraceptive options in Kenya and globally. Bayer was the first pharmaceutical company to make a commitment to FP2020, cutting by 50 percent the price of its long-acting, reversible contraceptive implant, Jadelle®. This will provide access to contraception for more than 27 million women in the world’s poorest countries over the next six years.
Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) has also demonstrated its leadership on FP2020 by reducing the price of its long-acting, reversible contraceptive implants, Implanon® and Implanon NXT®, by 50 percent over the next six years. Both companies’ agreements were developed and supported by partnerships with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CHAI, the Governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Both Bayer and MSD are working closely with international partners, including Jhpiego, Marie Stopes International and national Ministries of Health, to ensure that health workers are trained to properly insert and remove implants and provide counseling on all methods of contraception.
“Social commitment is at the heart of Bayer’s business strategy, and we are proud to contribute to global efforts to expand access to family planning,” said Klaus Brill, Vice President of Corporate & Commercial Relations at Bayer HealthCare. “Through our Jadelle® Access Program, we are working to ensure that women have more contraceptive options available at local clinics so they can choose a method that best suits their needs.”
Continuing Momentum
This event in Nairobi takes place just days before the International Conference on Family Planning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (12-15 November). There, global leaders will celebrate progress since the London Summit, announce new commitments and call on donors and governments to do more.
Leaders will also discuss efforts to track progress toward the FP2020 goals. Kenya is one of 10 countries that will implement the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA 2020) program, which will be led by International Centre for Reproductive Health-Kenya, with support from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In early 2014, Kenya will begin training female, community-based data collectors across the country to conduct nationally-representative surveys, via mobile technology, every six months to routinely update family planning data.
Globally, it is estimated that reaching an additional 120 million women with family planning by 2020 will result in 100 million fewer unintended pregnancies; three million fewer babies dying in their first year of life; and 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth. Beyond this, reducing unintended pregnancies leads to more young women staying in school, advancing their education and providing a better future for their children.
Last week, UNFPA released its 2013 State of the World Population report, which focused on adolescent pregnancy and analyzed global data and trends to develop a better understanding of barriers to access and the impact of family planning programs.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jessica Freifeld, Global Health Strategies
jfreifeld@globalhealthstrategies.com
+1 917-922-3060
Photographs for media use can be downloaded
