Want to Talk about Family Planning? Reach Out to Your Local Mayor

May 08, 2017Advocacy efforts to improve access to and use of family planning must include local government officials.  “I can’t believe it’s so small!”I will never forget the reaction of one of the mayors in Rwanda during an advocacy workshop on family planning as we passed around a variety of modern contraceptive methods, inviting participants to open, touch, and feel them. It was his first experience holding an intrauterine device (IUD). He also had never touched a female condom or seen a contraceptive implant.Our project had designed a series of workshops including hands-on, tactile experiences for mayors of all of the country ’s 30 districts. We wanted the mayors to leave with a better understanding not only of the benefits—both health and economic—of family planning, but also of the point of view of the women and men in their communities. This was back in 2007.What happened next?After the workshops, and with ongoing advocacy work with parliamentarians, journalists, local community-based organizations, and others, mayors started investing more of their own budgets in high-impact maternal and child health services —including family planning. This, among other initiatives, contributed to Rwanda’s unprecedented increase in the rise of the percentage of women who chose to use modern contraception from 10% in 2005 to more than 40% by 2010.We also collaborated with the Ministry of Health to train hundreds of health workers in contraceptive technology and cou...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news