CARE applauds global community for standing by girls and women and urges the global community to honor commitments made at the summit
London, UK (July 11, 2012) – At the close of the London Summit on Family Planning, CARE International, one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid organizations, applauds the global community for standing by girls and women to ensure that they can decide if, when and how many children to bear.
CARE participated in the daylong summit where it was announced that more than 150 leaders from donor and developing countries, international agencies, civil society, foundations and the private sector raised the resources to deliver contraceptives to an additional 120 million women around the world by 2020. Also at the summit, more than 20 developing countries made bold commitments to address the policy, financing and delivery barriers to women accessing contraceptive information, services and supplies. Donors also made new financial commitments to support these plans amounting to $2.6 billion.
“I was impressed that women’s rights and the voices of women were at the heart of our discussions at the summit,” says Christine Galavotti, CARE’s director of sexual and reproductive health, who attended the event. “Now we must channel the momentum of the summit, hold ourselves and others accountable, and take steps to provide contraceptives to the women who want it around the world.”
CARE released a report at the summit arguing that while additional resources are essential, any family planning strategy must have at its core women’s rights and empowerment and be linked to approaches that lead to greater effectiveness and sustainability. In addition to supplying the contraceptives, these include vital, yet often overlooked, strategies that involve: addressing pervasive and deeply ingrained gender and social norms that inhibit women and couples’ use of family planning services, strengthening systems of governance and accountability, and ensuring women’s reproductive health needs are met in development and emergency contexts where women are often more vulnerable yet have less options.
“CARE is committed to working with communities, governments and other partners to catalyze and support action at the local, national and global levels,” says Galavotti. “There is no time to lose. Too many girl's and women’s lives are at stake.”
Below find CARE’s Top 10 Tips for world leaders at the 2012 Global Family Planning Summit:
1. Universal access to contraception saves women’s lives! (this would mean 25% fewer maternal deaths, actually.)
2. Stop discussing whether or not family planning is a human right. (Everyone already agreed it was in the 1994 Cairo Programme of Action).
3. Family planning isn’t just about condoms (or the pill, or IUDs…). It’s EMPOWERING women to make choices about their own health.
4. …and women (and communities) must be involved in designing what those choices should be.
5. Family planning leads to healthier, wealthier and better educated families. Family planning fights poverty (supports progress to meeting the MDGs!).
6. People don’t stop having sex during emergencies. But they do lose access to family planning services. Make this part of emergency response. (There’s a checklist: the Minimal Initial Service Package for Reproductive Health).
7. Rape is used as a weapon. Any emergency response must also include emergency contraception and support for survivors.
8. Pregnancy is a leading killer of girls aged 15-19 years old in developing countries. Children shouldn’t have children. Children should be in school.
9. Build up health care systems and break down social barriers (lack of education or health information for women and girls, violence against women, cultural discrimination…)
10. Deliver on your promises. And measure your results.
To learn more and hear about how CARE is already making this work, read CARE International’s report on family planning: Women’s Lives, Women’s Voices: Empowering women to ensure family planning coverage, quality and equity
About CARE: Founded in 1945, CARE International is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty and providing lifesaving assistance in emergencies. In 84 countries around the world, CARE places special focus on working alongside poor girls and women because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to help lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. CARE has been working on sexual, reproductive and maternal health programming for over 50 years, and is currently working in more than 30 countries that have some of the highest unmet need for family planning services, and some of the lowest contraceptive prevalence rates in the world. To date, CARE has reached 15 million women and children through our maternal and child health programs.