26 September 2017, PPD HQ, Dhaka, Bangladesh:
Today, 26th September, PPD will observe the World Contraception Day 2017 with the member countries and other stakeholders. In this day PPD would like to boost the worldwide campaign centers around the vision of ‘every pregnancy is wanted’ across the member countries.
Now PPD represents 59% of the world population, where the young crowd occupied almost half, who are in need of real information and tools to avoid unintended pregnancy. PPD believes, promoting South-South Cooperation is essential to advancing Family Planning goals. To ensure that all women, no matter where they live, should have access to lifesaving contraceptive by 2020, is a critical milestone to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights by 2030, as laid out in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3 and 5.
In this important day PPD tried to map the contraceptive needs and method-mix of the member countries and found that gaps yet remains in terms of access to the contraceptives. Unmet need for family planning is still high in most of the PPD member countries and the figure1 demands smooth exchange of contraceptives where SSC could play vital role. Improvement of the awareness of contraception and to enable young people to make informed choices through appropriate method mix on their sexual and reproductive health life is equally important in concurrence of smooth procurement and supply of commodities.
The map of the method-mix depicted in Table1 shows clearly that the choice of contraception is different in different countries. The overall picture identifies that the male sterilization is limited in almost all the countries. IUD is not found in remarkable figures across member countries with few exceptions. The method-mix analysis is important to ensure the appropriate commodity supply in a specific country.
Today, PPD has Permanent Observer status at the UN General Assembly and has diplomatic presence in New York and Geneva. PPD is appropriately poised to enhance opportunities for promoting South-South Collaboration for Family Planning, sexual and reproductive services and rights – elevating family planning and SRHR issues itself into the realm of international relationships and diplomacy. The synergy between ‘South-South Diplomacy’ and ‘Population Diplomacy’ is the unique arena of advocacy and policy dialogue, developing joint position on family planning issues, opportunities for ministerial peer review mechanisms, advocating for justice in access to essential commodities and bilateral engagements for family planning and SRHR.
In this day, PPD would like to appeal to the global community, development partners, bilateral agencies to ensure and continue their support and commitment towards promoting South-South Cooperation for supplying emergency contraceptives. PPD expects that the World Contraception Day will amalgamate the voice of 225 million women living in low- to middle-income countries who are encountering the unmet need for contraception. No doubt, contraception should be widely available and accessible through trained health workers to anyone who is sexually active, including adolescents.