Global Conference Closes with Call for Family Planning to Be at Center of Development Agenda

The third International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2013) ended yesterday with a Call to Action by civil society leaders for governments to prioritize family planning in the new global development framework that replaces the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after 2015. The Call to Action was issued as five additional African and Asian governments and the United Kingdom announced commitments to expand contraceptive access and options.

The Addis Call to Action on the Post-2015 Development Framework voices the perspective of civil society that the ability to plan one’s family and future is a fundamental right and a sound investment. Ensuring that women and girls are able to plan whether and when to have children means mothers and babies are more likely to survive. Additionally, when countries invest in family planning alongside health, education and gender equity, they can realize a “Demographic Dividend” for economic growth and prosperity.

 “We still have leaders on the African continent who are not yet hooked on the message of family planning. The promise of the Demographic Dividend is an entry point to bring those leaders on board,” said Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, Regional Director of the Africa Regional Office of Partners in Population and Development, who presented the Call to Action at the closing session of ICFP 2013.

“No nation in history has transitioned from a developing country to middle-income status without family planning.

 “Family planning is a development imperative because it unlocks the potential of young women,” said Anuradha Gupta, Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Rural Health Mission in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India. “Family planning can create a profound impact when it becomes a central part of integrated maternal and child health care.”

The Call to Action will be presented to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to underscore the essential role that global development goals such as the MDGs and the new post-2015 framework play in catalyzing action and holding countries accountable.

ICFP 2013, the largest global gathering on family planning, brought together more than 3,000 advocates, researchers, health professionals and political leaders from over 100 countries. Presentations at the conference, which was organized around the theme “Full Access, Full Choice” and opened 12 November, focused on progress in expanding contraceptive information and services since the historic July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, which re-established family planning as a top global health priority.

At ICFP 2013, five additional countries made significant commitments to expand family planning programs:

Facing Huge Need for Contraception, Young Leaders Pioneer Innovative Solutions

The current generation of young people is the largest in history and also at great risk for unintended pregnancy, maternal death and the life-altering consequences of becoming teenage parents. Youth themselves are speaking up to demand that family planning programs reach more of their peers and take account of their unique needs.

Attendees of the 2013 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2013)—many of them young women and men under age 25 spoke passionately today about the importance of providing contraceptive information and services to youth. Organized around the theme “Full Access, Full Choice,” ICFP is the largest-ever global meeting on family planning, and is taking stock of progress to ensure that everyone has the tools to plan their families and futures.

 “Family planning is holistic. It gives young people the chance to stay in school, to finish their education, to start a business,” said Barwani Msiska, attending ICFP as a Youth Leader from the Republic of Malawi. “We talk about Africa rising, but we cannot achieve that great big idea if we do not invest in and protect our adolescents.”

According to the United Nations, every day 20,000 girls younger than age 18 give birth in developing countries, representing 95% of births to adolescent girls worldwide. Girls are at a dramatically heightened risk for pregnancy- and childbirth-related health complications, and 70,000 girls under age 18 die annually as a result. The benefits of empowering girls to avoid pregnancy include better health, increased economic productivity and the full realization of their rights and potential.

The plenary presentations at ICFP 2013 today highlighted emerging evidence of what works to reach young people with contraceptive information and services. One of the biggest challenges is that when adults try to engage with young people, the message often falls flat due to generational differences. “Peer-to-peer” programs that enlist youth to be leaders are essential.

 “There is a barrier between young people and grownups, and when adults talk about family planning, young people often don’t say what they think. With peer-to-peer education, youth open up a lot more to other youth,” said Maria Angelica Botero, a Youth Leader attending ICFP from the Republic of Colombia. “What doesn’t work is when grownups pass on their taboos. We have to talk to young people in our language.”

Family planning programs must engage everyone in the community. Changing attitudes among men and religious leaders is paramount, particularly attitudes that sanction child marriage. In developing countries, 9 out of 10 adolescent girls who become pregnant are married, often to much older men, and a quarter of adolescent pregnancies occur in girls ages 10–14.

 “As a young male who is a women’s rights advocate, I have been questioned by my peers, my family, my community. They say that men should be in power,” said Dakshitha Madhuka Wickremarathne, attending ICFP as a Youth Leader from the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. “There are many political, religious and legal barriers to women making decisions about their bodies.”

Barwani Msiska of Malawi said: “When you walk into a church, you see someone young with a

As more efforts are launched to deliver contraceptive information and services to young people, it is critical to carefully monitor and evaluate their effectiveness. The best programs will need new resources so they can be brought to scale while maintaining quality.

It is vital that young people are front and center in making decisions about family planning programs and policy. “The biggest problem for young people is old people. We as adult leaders have to get over our discomfort about family planning and youth because it is about saving lives,” said Kate Gilmore, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund. “As adults it is our responsibility to grow up, in order to facilitate safe passage from childhood to adulthood for young people.”

Women Drive Progress on Family Planning—Let’s Join Their Fight

Distinguished female leaders addressed the more than 3,000 attendees of the 2013 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2013) today, emphasizing women’s extraordinary impact on advancing health and gender equity worldwide. In particular, female leadership is driving expanded access to family planning and contraception for women in the poorest countries, empowering them to plan their lives and realize their full potential.

 

ICFP 2013 is the largest-ever meeting focused on improving health and promoting women’s well-being by ensuring that all women who want to use family planning have access to accurate information and a range of options. The conference, organized around the theme “Full Access, Full Choice,” is highlighting progress since the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, when the global community pledged to provide 120 million more women around the world with voluntary access to contraceptives by 2020.

 

“Women leaders have indispensable roles to play in ensuring access to family planning,” said Her Excellency Roman Tesfaye, First Lady of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. “Women parliamentarians at the national level should spearhead new policies, provide adequate resources and advocate for full access to family planning.”

 

Speakers at ICFP today stressed that as more women take on positions of leadership at all levels, they are becoming powerful change-agents. For example, front-line health workers deliver contraceptive information and services in remote areas. Community leaders combat myths and misinformation about family planning. Young women educate their peers about the value of family planning and help overcome taboos and barriers to accessing it.

 

Family planning saves and improves women’s lives, and benefits their families and nations. “Women fight for themselves and their families because they know it is a matter of life versus death,” said Melinda Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Let’s make sure that their courage counts, and let’s fight with them—as hard as we can and for as long as it takes.”

 

Worldwide, more than 220 million women want to plan their families but do not have access to modern contraceptive methods that meet their needs. Addressing these needs for contraception would result in fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth, fewer unintended pregnancies and fewer infant deaths.

 

However, speakers at ICFP today argued that increased access to family planning by itself is not adequate to make a lasting difference in women’s lives. “Family planning isn’t enough on its own; it needs to be a part of something bigger,” said Theo Sowa, Chief Executive Officer of the African Women Development Fund. “It’s no good for a woman to have a choice of contraceptive methods if there is a strong threat of violence against her.”

 

Attendees of ICFP 2013 are discussing and debating actions that need to be taken alongside family planning to fully empower women. These include reducing violence against women and girls, preventing child marriages, and making new investments in girls’ education and women’s employment. Developing compelling ways of engaging men to become advocates for family planning is also important.

 

Human activity caused Kasese floods- Experts

 Human activity caused Kasese floods- Experts

By Hope Mafaranga

In Kasese

  At the first sight, my eyes were charmed by the white beautiful well shaped stones, little did I know that the stones I was admiring, left people dead and others displaced. The cause was simple, the stones were forced from the mountains by man who interrupted with nature hence destroyed the environment and causing the floods in the western Uganda district of Kasese.

Rebecca Nanjara the UNDP Climate Change Coordinator confirmed that human activities are responsible for most of the loss in biodiversity throughout the world. She was on 2^nd July 2013, presenting results of the Kasese floods that left 8 people dead in May this year.

Nanjara said that many people are yet to suffer from disasters if human activities are not stopped from digging on the slopes of the mountains like Mt Elgon and Mt Rwenzori which are prone to landslide and has a number of rivers that are likely to continue flooding.

Nanjara said that such disasters can rarely naturally occur but the moment they find other things like human activities, the situation gets worse.

 “What we have just witnessed in Kasese is the beginning of a long term disasters if we don’t stop human activities in protected area. Digging in the slopes, clearing of natural vegetation, cutting of trees, all these are human activities that increase the disasters,” she said. 

 The community must vacate

The National Coordinator of Emergency in the Prime Minister’s office Maj. Gen. Julius Oketta said that the community living along the river banks must vacate if country is to avoid more deaths.  

“If we are to avoid more deaths from such disasters, people living along the river banks and slopes of the mountains must vacate and comply with the environmental programs. Every river bank must not be touched by 100 meters and people should not cultivate along the river. But now we are finding people digging up the river. We must stop interfering with the edges of the river completely,” he said.

 He noted that people have over interfered with river, causing soil erosion, hence broking the original water route which also contributed greatly to the effect of the floods.

“The rivers here had a natural flow which was interfered with by the Kilembe Mines. They diverted the river from its natural flow to their own line. So now this time when the river came it was trying to go back to its former original flow,” he said

 Gen Oketta appealed to people to stop destroying trees on top of the mountains in order to gain its tropical natural forests.

 “In order for us to live a good life and have a secured future we must have a good environmental management to by planting trees, avoid interfering with the nature, this will enable us to stay away from such disasters which we have largely created as human beings,” he added.

 Kasese district experienced its third floods on 1^st May 2013, when River Nyamwamba busted its banks leaving eight people dead and more that 50,000 displaced.

The Kasese district LCV chairperson Col Mawa Muhindo said that the they are doing every possible to sensitize the people about disaster preparedness and the dangers of destroying the environment.

Snow caps melting

A source at National Environment Management Authority ( NEMA) who preferred anonymity said that looking at  the snows on Mt Rwenzori from the DR Congo side,  the snows are interact  and the area’s  vegetation and tropical forests have not been destroyed like in Uganda.

“Looking at the snows from the Congo side, the snows are beautiful and interact. But when you come to Ugandan side , there is almost nothing  to see , the entire area is too degraded and the snows are not appetizing in fact they are melting off and soon disappearing,” the source said.

But Dr. Gorret Kitutu the NEMA environment information management specialist said he said that it the snow caps on Uganda side are not melting, and therefore was not responsible for the floods.

“It is not true that the snow caps are melting and they are not responsible for the floods that hit Kasese at the begging of May. The main cause of the floods was extreme highly rain flow fall, and we sometime experience this kind of abnormal rains,” she said.

Dr. Kitutu also attributed to the Nyamwamba river blast to the fire that burnt the park in 2011.

“We also suspect that the fire that burnt the park in 2011, the area that was burnt was River Nyamwamba’s catchment area and it has not recovered so when water came there was nothing to hold it which also escalated the problem that affected the people on low land,” she added.

History

Machi Muranga an elder in the area who witnessed the 1963 floods, was not surprised by the that history have repeated itself.

 He said that the first disaster happened in 1963 and 1965, adding that it is at this time when the Canadian team came to start mining and diverted the river flow and they knew that the flooding problem will still occur and they had special machine which they used to de-silt the water from time to time and that’s why people were not having this problem.  The rocks have been depositing in the river for more than 30 years.

“Since Iddi Amin chased away the Canadian, the rocks have never been removed. So many pieces of rocks have deposited reducing the depth of the river making it shallow. So any increase of the water even if it’s just one meter, it will definitely flow on the surface of the land,” he said.

 He added said that all people who died during the flood, were living on the of river and when it came it had no choice but to take them.

 “The people who died were interfering with the natural flow of water. They were living on the path of the river where it used to pass. When you in a space of 100 meters, and the flow come, it will not attack human being, but now human has come to the flow line, definitely when there is an overflow it will land on human habitation,” he said.

Plans

Gen Oketta said that the government and the Kasese district and municipality authorities need to plan to re-direct the water flow to the Queen Elizabeth National Park to Lake George but if they do not do that, Kasese will keep flooding until Jesus comes back.

 Originally before the white man came to Africa, Kasese was called Kisesa which means a swamp or an area that normally floods.

Population growth

The 2002 national census put the population of the district at approximately population at 533,000.  Booker Ajuoga of ADRA Uganda said that Kasese district has a population growth rate of 3.6 percent per year, calling it a challenge to natural resources.

“The population is growing a terrible spread and if not controlled will continue to mount a huge pressure on the environment. With an increasing population, we are consuming more and more natural resources,” he said.

 Ajuoga said that in 1963, when the area was seriously hit by floods, the impact was not felt like it did now because the population was still low. He added that due to population pressure, Nyamwamba, Lubiriha, Nyamughani and Mubuku rivers banks have been tapped with.

“People have opened ways for improper irrigation of their crops which they have cultivated at the banks of the rivers. These are the same routes the floods used to devastate the area,” he added.

A blessing in Disguise

The floods came as a blessing as many people are making money from sand that came with the floods.  Along Kasese – Fort Portal, it’s a normal business for the ages groups who are taking part in mining the sand to make quick money.

Young children as young as 7 years, the youth , women and men are visibly excited mining sand and sell a trip of sand at sh 20,000.

Madina Biira a mother of 5 says that the floods came as a blessing because she is now able to make between sh 160,000 to sh 200,000 every day from sand.

“I wish the rains becomes too much so that floods can bring more sand to the low land for me to mine and make money, she said.

AID

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Uganda a humanitarian agency has donated relief items to Kasese flood victims worth US 25,000.

Booker Ajuoga, the ADRA Uganda spokesperson told the New Vision that the relief items are meant to assist over 500 affected families. The items included sacks of maize flour, beans, saucepans, salt, soap, as well as water purification tablets.

He said that registration of the affected families started on Monday by the end of Wednesday people were already receiving the relief at Kasese Primary school camp while at Buyoge Camp people were already receiving the aid.

At least 8 people were confirmed to have been killed by the floods that hit Kasese district on at the begging of this month after River Nyamwamba burst its banks following heavy rains.

Global Fund Takes Action to Prevent Wrongful Conduct

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced today that as part of its broad program to prevent abuse of any kind, it suspended contracts with two international suppliers of mosquito nets after uncovering evidence that they committed serious financial wrongdoing in Cambodia.

The Global Fund has zero tolerance for wrongful conduct. It actively investigates and uncovers fraud, takes swift action against wrongdoers, and pursues recovery of misused funds. Committed to an exceptional degree of transparency, the Global Fund openly publishes its investigation reports.

The Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General today published an investigation report that found that between 2006 and 2011, two international suppliers paid commissions to two Cambodian officials totaling approximately US$410,000 in return for awarding contracts for insecticide-treated nets that prevent the spread of malaria. Based on recommendations of its Sanctions Panel, the Global Fund has suspended contracts with the two suppliers, Vestergaard Frandsen and Sumitomo Chemical Singapore, pending a full review.

Vestergaard and Sumitomo both fully cooperated with the investigation, have taken action against the employees involved, and have taken preventative steps to deter wrongful conduct in the future, agreeing that stronger measures will better serve the common goal of preventing the spread of malaria, particularly in high-risk countries.   

“We cannot tolerate unethical conduct anywhere,” said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “Although this case had no direct impact on Cambodia’s fight against malaria, taking commissions in exchange for contracts violates our mission of public service. We remain fully committed to pursuing fraud and taking action when we find it.”

The Global Fund has supported programs in Cambodia fighting AIDS, TB and malaria with US$331 million disbursed since 2003, achieving striking success and playing a key role in Cambodia’s achievement of an 80 percent decline in malaria deaths, a 45 percent fall in TB cases and a 50 percent decline in cases of HIV.

Over the past two years, the Global Fund has taken multiple actions to protect its investments by significantly strengthening deterrence and minimizing the risk of abuse.

Strong financial oversight, paired with heightened risk mitigation, is now built into the implementation process for each grant, no matter how big or small, and a governance and execution mechanism has been established to recover misused funds.

A new framework for procurement was established, with a comprehensive approach to ensure all bulk purchasing is consistently undertaken in a fair, transparent, lawful and ethical manner. Over the past year, the Global Fund has tripled the value of products covered by safer pooled procurement practices. In 55 countries identified as high-risk for procurement, 83 percent of products are now in pooled procurement, just above the benchmark 80 percent used in the private sector. 

The investigation found that, while a Global Fund grant in Cambodia was compromised by the commission payments, all the mosquito nets procured by that grant were provided as intended.

The investigation report identified wrongful conduct in three entities in Cambodia disbursing funds from the Global Fund. In addition to the two Cambodian officials who accepted financial inducements from suppliers of nets, the report also cites improper charges and manipulation of procurement practices at two other organizations. The wrongful conduct identified in the report involves a total of approximately US$431,000.

The Global Fund Sanctions Panel, with both internal and independent experts, evaluates cases where sanctions may be warranted. The Sanctions Panel recommended that the two suppliers named in the Cambodia report be suspended pending a full review of the case.

Other steps were taken in Cambodia. The Principal Recipient for a malaria grant was replaced, after the evidence identified two officials of the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM) who accepted commissions in exchange for awarding contracts. Fiduciary and procurement agents were appointed to work within another implementer, the National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD Control (NCHADS) and fiduciary controls are being strengthened at key higher-risk sub-recipients.

The Global Fund’s investigation began in 2011, and the report took two and a half years to complete. It involved analysis of a wide scope of data and a complex investigation of multiple entities. In addition, to be fair and to follow due process, those affected by the report and their legal counsel were provided with multiple opportunities to assess the findings and to respond appropriately, at various stages of the investigation.

The Global Fund’s systematic work on risk management and controls, and its effective use of audits and investigations, reflect a strong commitment to preventive measures and are expected to lead to fewer cases of wrongdoing in the future.