Investing in family planning: The case for long-acting and permanent methods of contraception

Millions of women in Africa, even in high HIV-prevalence settings, are at greater risk of unwanted pregnancy and maternal morbidity and mortality than they are of HIV, and effective family planning prevents more mother-to-child transmission of HIV than do ARV drugs. Through effective family planning, hundreds of thousands of African women's and children's lives would be saved every year. In the absence of widespread availability and use of LAPMs, a country's fertility levels will generally stay high, and national development will be low and slow. Family planning saves lives and is critical to social and economic development. Yet it has yielded the global and national policy spotlights to issues such as HIV/AIDS and poverty alleviation. The expansion of long-acting and permanent methods of contraception (LAPMs) [IUDs, implants, male and female sterilization] in national health systems is a pressing need that must be addressed to sustain advances in health and to support economic and social development goals now and in the future. Family planning managers must participate with strong voices in health sector-wide discussions that set priorities for budgets and human resource needs. The ACQUIRE Project has developed an advocacy package consisting of evidence based tools and approaches that includes Reality Check, a forecasting tool that enables national and district level staff to project family planning needs for evidence-based advocacy and realistic planning. This presentation will review experience using the advocacy package at the various administrative health levels in Uganda and Tanzania.