New advocacy campaign on family planning and the millennium development goals

1 November 2010

Source: FHI

A new advocacy campaign has been launched to highlight the contribution that international reproductive health and family planning can play in achieving the Millennium Development goals and call for action to ensure access to reproductive health. 

The  Millennium Development Goals

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed in 2000 to help the international community end poverty, hunger, and fundamental health and gender inequities, and are widely accepted as the primary path to alleviating poverty worldwide. Women's access to family planning plays an essential and incontrovertible role in meeting each of the MDGs.

The new advocacy campaign Diverse Voices in Unison: Family Planning and the Millennium Development Goals initiative, has been launched by the global health and development organisation FHI.

Cross-discipline international support for family planning

With partners from a variety of disciplines, a consensus statement has been developed that highlights the multifaceted importance of and interdisciplinary support for international family planning. It will serve as a call to action for expanded discourse, broad partnerships and consensus building, and increased funding, all of which will accelerate progress toward meeting the targets of MDG 5, as well as the other MDGs.

The consensus statement outlines how;

‘by expanding discourse on development solutions, establishing nontraditional partnerships, and increasing resources for reproductive health and family planning, we can fulfill our MDG promises to the world's poor.'

Recommendations for improving access to reproductive health

It calls upon global leaders and UN MDG Advocates to ensure better access to reproductive health for all and makes the following specific recommendations:

• Leaders from diverse disciplines should acknowledge and promote family planning's multiple benefits for global development and health.
• UN agencies should build on The Joint Action Plan for Women's and Children's Health to reinforce existing and secure new commitments, and establish an accountability framework for delivering results.
• Member parties should honor commitments to fully finance the International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action, meet official development-assistance obligations outlined in the Monterrey Consensus, and execute the Abuja Declaration.

The consensus statement Family Planning and the Millenium Development goals, authored by international leaders from across disciplines has been published in the journal Science can be read here.