Join FP2020 by Making a Commitment

40,000 new women (tea farmers or tea workers) will be reached by HERhealth programme or similar programme to raise awareness on awareness and improve access to health services,particularly concerning reproductive health and family planning,by December 2020.

Twinings aims to improve the quality of lives of people in tea communities where we source our products. We believe everyone in our supply chain should have a good quality of life and to provide for themselves and their family. Women make up most of the workforce on tea estates in tea gardens. But in developing countries women often lack access to adequate healthcare and the knowledge they need to look after their own health. This can lead to high maternal mortality rates,HIV infection, pressure on family finances due to unintended pregnancies, lack of productivity and low income. We know that when women and girls thrive, so do the people around them andthe wider society. That’s why, at Twinings, we are committed to empower women in our supply chain through health and education.

Kenya is our second largest tea sourcing origin and in 2015, Twinings started a partnership with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to implement the HERhealth programme in communities in our supply chain in this country. HERhealth aims to raise female workers’ health awareness and access to health services, particularly concerning reproductive health. So far we have reached 675 women and 551 men in two tea gardens, with a variety of improvements in health awareness among the women, including 100% now able to name at least one family planning method (it was 30% before the project). Twinings is currently implementing HERhealth programmes that reach 6,000 women workers and farmers, and will significantly expand its programming to reach 40,000 new women

Lindex is a Swedish fashion chain, with approximately 480 stores in 17 markets. Lindex business concept is to offer inspiring and affordable fashion to the fashion conscious woman. The assortment includes several different concepts within women ́s wear, kids‘wear, lingerie and cosmetics. More than half of Lindex total assortment is made of more sustainable sources and Lindex is dedicated that 80% of the company ́s supply chain capacity should be produced in sustainable factories by 2020, defined by environmental and human rights criteria. Lindex has an ambition to improve the lives of all women in the Lindex global supplychain and the communities where we operate connected to our production. We are committed to contribute to women’s empowerment and gender equality through trainingand education as well as creating enabling and inclusive workplaces.

Lindex is a Swedish fashion company with a workforce consisting of about 97% women. Our consumers are mainly women (98%) since we produce fashion for women andchildren, and 60% of the workers in the factories where we produce are women. It is important for us to focus on women. 

Lindex has conducted Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) HERhealth projects since 2012 mainly in Bangladesh but also in Pakistan and India. Up till now about 12,000 women have been given education and training in:

• Raising awareness on nutrition, healthy eating, personal and menstrual hygiene, family planning, and maternal health
• Improving the capacity of the workplace clinic, including the provision of some forms of contraception.
• Improving health-related behavior such as disease testing, seeking out preventive care,conducting breast self-examination, using sanitary napkins instead of dirty cloths from the factory floor and when to go to the doctor.
• Strengthening workplace policies and systems promoting worker well-being.
• Linking workplaces with external service providers such as local clinics
• Addressing myths and misconceptions around potentially harmful health practices andbelieves.
• Building confidence and communication skills around discussing important health issuesat work and at home.

We have mainly worked with our supply chain from a bottom up approach (HERhealth projects) to drive change through worker engagement and training. We plan to continue with this and have planned 11 new HERhealth projects to start during 2017. But we also see the need for a top to bottom approach, a gender based management system in order to improve and ensure the inclusion of gender issues into Human Resources.

But we also see the need for a top to bottom approach, a gender based management system in order to improve and ensure the inclusion of gender issues into Human Resources.
WE WOMEN by Lindex is a 3 year project developed through a Public Private Partnership with GIZ, a German development agency, and in cooperation with BSR and other non-government organizations. The purpose of the project is to mainstream gender inclusion in the management systems of the Bangladeshi ready –made garment industry. After the project is finished we willintroduce this Management system into our whole supply chain in India, Pakistan, Turkey,China, Myanmar and Cambodia.
This project goes beyond the replication of HERhealth projects with gendered lessons learned as this partnership with GIZ aims at institutionalizing an industry wide approach towards including gender and management issues into the HR system management tools. We will try and achieve a systematic change and move from project to business principles.

There is also an element of community engagement in this project. Lindex will together with GIZ start a Women ́s Café in one of the areas where we have production. When the project ends Lindex will run the café on its own. The café will be open for all but especially for women. It will be a meeting place with focus on capacity building, training and awareness raising but also issues that the women need and want.

The program will, through access to training/advisory services and a toolbox, support suppliers in improving their gender related performance through setting gender indicators in their management systems. To give female workers in the factories higher chances to work in middle to higher staff positions and have access to better technical, financial and health related training. Training will also be provided for men, it is important to include them in order to drive change both in the factory as well as in the community.The impact of this commitment will be measured in Lindex Business Scorecard which grade Lindex suppliers according to both business and sustainability indicators. It is directly connected to business benefits.The pilot targets the Lindex supply chain in Bangladesh where the number of female workers in the stitching units constitute 60% of the total workforce. The total workforce is 83.500 people and 50.276 of these are female workers. 

CARD-MRI, the largest microfinance institution in the Philippines, is committed to provide family planning education and information to at least 4 million women up to 2020. Under this campaign, CARD-MRI women-members will receive weekly 15-minute learning sessions on Modern Family Planning Methods through the Credit With Education (CWE) Program, supplemented with an SMS messaging campaign. Of these women who receive FP education and information, CARD-MRI commits to provide general medical services, wellness check-up, dental services and family planning counselling and services to 200,000 women each year, bringing to 800,000 the total number of women provided with actual services. This means that, with the average Filipino family size of 4, a total of 3.2 million Filipinos would have improved their lives through the health and family planning services that CARD-MRI will provide in the next four years.

CARD-MRI also intends to tap its own chain of pharmacies, called BotiCARDs, situated in major cities of the country to provide medicines and family planning commodities, including pills and condoms, to its clients at discounted prices.

Through CARD-MRI’s partnership with UNFPA, CARD-MRI commits its doctors and nurses for training on modern FP services. All 17 nurses deployed throughout the country will have been certified by government as trained for subdermal implant insertion.

As a microfinance institution, CARD-MRI commits to empowering women from the poorest sectors of Philippine society to become economically productive, enabling them to contribute towards increasing family income and enhancing socio-economic development of the country.

The government of Lao commits to scale up family planning services to health center and village levels to increase the access to reproductive health and information for adolescents, aiming to boost the number of women using family planning services. Key interventions planned include:

• Extending the training of existing community midwife students by a month to become proficient in family planning counselling and procedures (IUDs, implants, emergency contraceptive);
• Establishing separate private, family planning-friendly rooms in selected district hospitals;
• Increasing the coverage of family planning and maternal, neonatal, and child health services at the community level through the scaling up of existing, successful community-based interventions, such as the Community-Based Distribution Programme;
• Mapping and focusing on high-burden districts and villages, with total fertility rate greater than 3, unmet need greater than 15 percent or 20 percent, and CPR between 35 percent or 45 percent;
• Conduct formative research to inform the development and adaptation and field-testing of IEC materials in local ethnic languages; and
• Pilot youth-friendly service counselling rooms—separate from the maternal, neonatal, and child health unit—and in selected district hospitals.

The government of Afghanistan commits to developing a family planning national costed implementation plan (2017-2020); strengthening community-level family planning services through the training of community health workers; and providing sufficient stock of contraceptives. Afghanistan also pledges to expand access to long-acting and reversible methods as well as training at least one male and one female health worker in each health facility in conducting family planning counseling and the appropriate administration of contraceptive methods. In addition, the government will strengthen community mobilization and increase advocacy about family planning among religious and community leaders, civil society, and youth as well as develop information, education, and communication and behavior change communication campaigns to address barriers to accessing family planning and reproductive health services. Afghanistan will also strengthen coordination, commitment, and collaboration between the public and private sector to improve reproductive health and family planning services, training, supplies, equipment, and commodities. In addition, the government will roll out a youth health line to five major cities to provide counseling and information to youth on reproductive health and family planning. The government will also include implants on the Ministry of Public Health’s essential medicines.

Education and training: The Trust commits it will provide training to more than 3,250 UK-based doctors and nurses between the beginning of 2016 and the end of 2019 and will expand its training activities to benefit at least 300 doctors and nurses in FP2020 focus countries, with training tailored to meet local capacity needs. The Trust’s training will aim to ensure that clinical service professionals provide high quality, comprehensive, rights-based voluntary family planning services based on the most up-to-date medical best practice. Course topics will include changing methods, updates on both hormonal and non-hormonal methods (including long-acting and reversible contraceptives), safe abortion, emergency contraception, HIV/STIs, female genital mutilation, and other aspects of female reproductive health.

Integrated programs: The Trust commits to design and implement at least three sexual and reproductive health and rights integrated programmes in FP2020 focus countries between the autumn 2016 and 2019. This pledge is dependent on the Trust securing the necessary financial support to implement the relevant programmes.

Issue and policy advocacy: The Trust pledges to undertake advocacy activities for health and gender organizations, policy makers, and funding partners and also for other sectors including environmental and climate change audiences, to help build a broader coalition of organizations working to ensure universal access to comprehensive and voluntary family planning services.

The Trust commits to advocate for the importance of universal access to comprehensive and voluntary family planning services and rights to those services, as a critical requirement to enable sustainable development. In the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Trust will advocate for the imperative of including sexual and reproductive health and rights to achieve not only the health and gender equality Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also those focused on ending poverty and hunger, promoting education, ensuring access to clean water, and combatting climate change. The Trust commits its leadership and experience to undertake advocacy activities not only for health and gender organizations, policy makers and funding partners, but also for other sectors, to help build a broader coalition of organizations working to ensure universal access to comprehensive and voluntary family planning services as essential rights in and of themselves and also critical to achieving the SDGs in their totality.

The Margaret Pyke Trust, with the Population & Sustainability Network—a UK-registered charity—works in the UK and internationally to promote sexual and reproductive health knowledge, rights, and services, benefitting all people, women and girls in particular, and to support sustainable development. Since its foundation in 1969, the Trust has been at the forefront of developments in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) through excellence in academic research on sexual and reproductive health and contraception and training for qualified medical professionals.

The Trust’s international program, the Population & Sustainability Network (PSN), is a network of 17 diverse organizations, from governmental bodies, like the UK Department for International Development to international NGOs, like the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Friends of the Earth, which all share the Trust’s vision. PSN focuses on advocacy, promoting SRHR as part of sustainable development, calling for an increase in funding of SRHR projects and ensuring that SRHR are prioritized in international development policies. In addition to advocacy, the Trust also works directly with its PSN members, on the ground in the developing world, using its nearly 50 years of SRHR experience at the programmatic level to integrate SRHR in broader development programs.

The Government of Cameroon commits to ensuring contraceptive security to avoid stock outs, providing the full range of contraceptives by ensuring quality services, including family planning counseling, training, and supervision of health workers, and ensuring the government’s and its partners’ accountability for funding family planning.

The Government of Togo commits to increasing service coverage by taking into account private and associative structures offering family planning services, organizing family planning services for the benefit of isolated and marginalized groups, and improving the access of local populations to family planning methods through innovative strategies. It also commits to integrating adolescent-youth sexual and reproductive health services into the PMA (minimum package of services) of health structures and recruiting and training qualified personnel for offering quality services. The Government of Togo commits to strengthening data forecasting and management to optimize the supply chain and to promoting contraceptive product supply chain excellence.

Togo also pledges to evaluate community-based distribution of services, including injectables, by December 31, 2014, reinforce results-based mechanisms for coordination, monitoring, and evaluation, and strengthen communication around family planning, particularly for key target populations. The Government of Togo also pledges to promote family planning with advocacy tools (RAPID, religious RAPID) and to institutionalize the national campaign for family planning.