The 2017 London Family Planning Summit held earlier this month has been celebrated as a success in renewing commitments for family planning. An impressive US$2.5 billion in funding commitments by new and old partners alike to ensure 120 million more women and girls have access to contraception. The Summit built a sense of hope and optimism for the family planning sector – a sector very much under threat in recent years and especially since the reinstatement and expansion of the Global Gag Rule. And five years on from the 2012 Summit, the landscape looks very different – the universality of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), greater political and financial commitment to family planning. Yet, we are also amid a rapidly changing aid environment – a contraceptive funding crisis, decreasing and diversifying official development assistance and reinstatement and decreasing funding for family planning. The real work starts now. Civil society organizations like IPPF and our partners are renewing our efforts to work in partnership to ensure the commitments are translated into reality. The progress towards 2020 must address specific challenges including stockouts of contraceptives in many countries, wider contraceptive choice, and protection and promotion of women and girls’ rights. But for now, let’s take stock of the four main highlights from the 2017 London Summit: Broader partnership:  The meeting brought renewed momentum to the family planning movement, with a broader partnership joining the cause. Funding commitments were made from partners new and old. 13 new commitments from were made private sector companies, four times higher than in the 2012 Summit. Engagement with the private sector and with sectors beyond health, like the environmental protection sector, envision a path toward stronger, interlinked development agendas. New funding commitments were also made by Norway, Denmark, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands. Pledges were also specifically made to UNFPA and She Decides. New collaborations are specifically important in the face of the loss of the largest bilateral donor of family planning – USAID. Interlinkages between climate and family planning:  With an interlinked global agenda set forth in the Sustainable Development Goals, there is a need to address the interlinkages across sectors. This was perfectly illustrated by the commitment of IPPF’s partner Blue Ventures to address interlinkages between health and environment. Through focusing on the needs of communities, Blue Ventures is expanding cross-sector partnerships between health and environment organizations in seven FP2020 target countries. Together, IPPF, Blue Ventures and a number of other partners have been working for a number of years with Population Sustainable Development Alliance (PSDA) to highlight the interlinkages between environment, climate change and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Today more than ever before we need to join forces to tackle the challenges of climate change, while respecting communities’ need for sexual and reproductive health services and information.   A focus on those left-behind: While the world is facing huge population shifts, the Summit emphasized the need to address the family planning needs of adolescents, displaced people and people living in humanitarian settings. There was a clear focus to reach women and girls left behind by traditional family planning programmes. Commitments from Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the International Rescue Commission (IRC), and Médecins du Monde (MdM) among others specifically highlighted FP in humanitarian contexts. Young people participated meaningfully on multiple platforms.  IPPF launched the landmark report ‘Under-served and Over-looked’ to shine a light on the blind spot of family planning progress, and focus on the women and girls left behind. The report underscores the inequalities for poor women and girls in their inability to access full, free and informed choice. The report suggests programmatic and policy solutions to reach poor and marginalized women and girls towards greater contraceptive equity.   Country ownership: As the world is tumbling towards a contraceptive crisis, more leadership is needed from partner countries to invest domestic resources in the health and wellbeing of their citizens. The meeting saw notable partner commitments from FP2020 focus countries, as well as first-time commitments from Chad, Haiti, and South Sudan. Greater national ownership of family planning programmes is crucial to the sustainability and progress of these programmes. With modern contraceptive prevalence rates as low as 5% in Chad and South Sudan, the recognition of the importance of family planning and women’s health will be transformative for their development. A number of Ministers of Finance attended, demonstrating a greater appreciation of the economic arguments for investing in family planning as a best buy intervention.   Accountability Towards 2020, we must ensure that bold commitments made in 2017 in London translate into reality. These commitments and shifts in conversation are significant roadmaps, but reaching these goals requires a concerted effort from all stakeholders at every level. Greater accountability is needed not only to ensure political and financial commitments are fulfilled, but we also women and girls are able to access the information and services they want and need. Civil society has an important role to play to ensure citizen engagement within accountability. FP2020 will introduce a civil society focal point to its structure (along with donor focal point and government focal point), a reinforcement of the idea that none of the FP2020 goals can be achieved in silos. For a sector reeling from growing political conservatism, the London Summit together with important initiatives of the She Decides movement has built a new sense of momentum, and renewed hope that the ambitious goals of FP2020 and the SDGs may one day be a reality. Together – through an expanded partnership – the sector must persevere towards universal access to family planning services and supplies. Yet we cannot forget the importance of women and girls whose lives depend on access to sexual and reproductive health services and supplies. We cannot forget them, and cannot afford to leave them behind.   Join our campaign: support universal access to contraception Watch all videos related to the 2017 Family Planning Summit    This blog was written by Elisa Magalhaes, Paige Rogers and Erica Belanger, IPPF Advocacy Team

by Michael Asudi, Organization of Africa Youth Kenya Chapter The Organization of Africa Youth (OAY) has partnered with IPPF for over 3 years to influence United Nations policies on human rights, population and development, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Most recently, I represented OAY at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which featured reports from 44 countries on the progress, challenges and lessons learned in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). OAY, a continental regional youth movement that draws its mandate from the Africa Youth Charter, has been engaging, organizing and coordinating African youth engagement in the post-2015 consultations processes, and now the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs. Participating in the SDG consultations, OAY did not wait for an invitation from the government. OAY instigated the process by rallying 10 youth-led organizations and the Kenyan National Youth Council to form the Kenya Youth Working Group on SDGs and sought government recognition. This officially opened doors, and OAY coordinated the youth SDG consultation process, both offline and online, and officially submitted the shadow youth report to the government, when it was still drafting the report in March 2017. OAY joined forces with IPPF at the HLPF to advocate for ensuring the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all people are protected, particularly the most marginalized, as critical to achieving all the SDGs. The HLPF offered an opportunity and space to interact, learn and share. It was truly an open space to engage. The most striking aspect of the HLPF was the extraordinary opportunities that allowed young advocates to meet and deliberate with top government leaders, without the bureaucracies as is normally the case in-country, in Nairobi. Hayley Gleeson from @ippf - we need youth-led accountability to ensure young people can access their sexual + reproductive rights #HLPF2017 pic.twitter.com/yiOvzxwch4 — Maeve O'Reilly (@Mav_4) July 10, 2017 I was able to meet with various key and influential stakeholders, such as the newly appointed UN Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake to share ideas and discuss the role of African youth in the SDGs accountability process, and the Head of the Kenyan Delegation, the youngest Principal Secretary Mr. Irungu Nyakera. I was thrilled to hear him explain; “I am young and I want a better Kenya, and that is why I quit the private sector for this public service job”   I learned that national advocacy feeds into the global space and vice versa. The two processes should not be viewed as a puzzle, but as cogged wheels, that if turned in the right direction yields the desired results. I strongly believe that there must be mutual accountability between civil society organizations and governments, and that the advocacy in national and global spaces must be people-focused and centered. Both speak for, and represent the citizens. Therefore the actions and desires that define WHY they exist must be about the people, each taking its own responsibilities as duty-bearers. The OAY will continue advocating for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people, with the support of IPPF. My next step will be to share what I have learned at the HLPF with the national youth network to strengthen the African regional voice. We say aluta continua!

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a UN mechanism that allows for the human rights of every country in the world to be reviewed. It is unique in many ways. It is a process that is member state and peer led; this means that countries are reviewed and questioned by their fellow member states. There are also opportunities for civil society to participate; we have the opportunity to submit reports that document violations of human rights in our countries, undertake advocacy with member states so that they make the pertinent questions and recommendations in the reviews of our governments, and to make oral statements at the adoption phase of the UPR cycle. IPPF works to ensure that sexual and reproductive health and rights are raised through the UPR cycle. We support our member associations in country to document where violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms occur, persistent cases of violence against women and impunity, gaps in provision of sexual and reproductive health lie, where sexual and reproductive rights are violated and where advances can be made by making specific and measurable recommendations for governments to undertake. This week, IPPF supported four of our Member Associations from Ecuador, Morocco, the Philippines and Tunisia, to undertake advocacy with Missions in Geneva regarding the sexual and reproductive health and rights issues that they believe need to be tackled in their respective countries. We met many Mission staff and shared information on the state of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the aforementioned countries, with the ambition of advancing the agenda through suggesting specific recommendations for change, but also to advocate on IPPF’s key priorities. What we can achieve through this advocacy, through engaging with the UPR, is real change and a tangible difference to the lives of millions of women and girls around the world. When we are able to encourage governments to take action on issues such as the decriminalisation of abortion, access to sexual and reproductive health for the most marginalised women, freedom of expression and identity for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Questioning (LGBTIQQ) peoples, we can ensure the protection and fulfilment of people’s human rights across the world. In the same week, we have also officially launched our IPPF Geneva Office. For a long time, IPPF has had a presence in Geneva, however, this new and permanent office signals a step change in IPPF’s work in Geneva. Through this new presence we hope to develop and nurture old and new long-lasting relationships with Missions, UN agencies and civil society organisations. Looking ahead, we see a world of promise, through partnership building and coalition working, as well as advocacy and engagement with the UPR and UN treaty bodies, and through working at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Together, with governments, UN agencies and civil society organisations, we can progress and advance the agenda on ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, free from discrimination and stigma. Subscribe to IPPF's updates!

In case you missed it – one of President Trump’s first order of business was to re-enact  the Mexico City Policy. Or as we in the sexual and reproductive health community un-affectionately call it - the Global Gag Rule (GGR).  With a stroke of his pen – and may I mention surrounded by men in suits - Trump doubled down on women and girls' most basic human rights. Now, millions of women and girls will not have the right to choice – placing them at risk of unsafe abortion, maternal death and denying their basic human rights of accessing life-saving contraception.   The GGR will have far reaching consequences on the health and lives of women and girls, and will go beyond their right to access safe abortion. In Africa, Asia and Latin America the ability for women and girls to access life-saving contraception will be compromised. US-donated contraceptives will be reduced and even eliminated, clinics and community health services may have to close their doors, and already fragile national health systems will be compromised.   Here are 3 ways that Trump’s Global Gag Rule will impact on contraception in particular.   It further exacerbates a growing global contraceptive funding gap. By 2020, the world will be facing a funding gap estimated at US173 million. Sufficient investment is not being prioritized for contraceptives at the global, national and subnational level. The US is the largest bilateral donor to family planning. Any reduction in political and financial commitment will have an impact on filling the funding gap. And we are concerned that this will lead to contraceptive stockouts – or women and girls leaving clinics empty handed.   More will need to come out of pocket from women and girls in developing countries. While traditional donor funding is changing and diversifying, national governments need to invest more in family planning services and contraceptive supplies. Yet, contraceptives remain underfunded and a significant proportion is covered by individual through out of pocket expenses. Individual women and girls, including those that are poor and marginalized, will need to cover a substantial proportion of funding for contraceptives.   We cannot take for granted that donor support to contraception alone will increase the availability of contraceptives. Investment and support is required for better supply chain management, and efficiencies in managing contraceptive security. Civil society organizations – like IPPF’s nationally-owned Member Associations – are instrumental in strengthening national and community contraceptive supplies processes and systems.   Without contraceptives, there are no programmes. And without contraceptives, the Sustainable Development Goals and ambition of Universal Health Coverage will not be achieved as women and girls are denied to the means to prevent unwanted pregnancy. All people – women, men and young people -  have the right to choose whether or not, how and when, to have children. 2017 is a pivotal moment, and we cannot be complacent. We must unite and be unwavering in our commitment to uphold the rights of women and girls.   WANT TO GET INVOLVED? SUBSCRIBE NOW TO GET UPDATES FROM IPPF SUPPORT OUR WORK WITH A DONATION

From the IPPF side event, "Transforming ‘work’: Linking Care, Public Services and Women’s Economic Empowerment" at the 61st Commission on the Status of Women. ActionAid and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) brought together a panel at the 61st CSW to discuss the interlinkages between gender responsive public services- including sexual and reproductive health services- unpaid care work, and women’s access to decent work. We heard about IDS’ latest research that examines women’s unpaid care work and the impact of this work on their economic participation. Dora, a young woman from South Africa, spoke about the barriers that she faces in accessing education and employment opportunities; she highlighted issues such as care burdens that limit girls staying in school, a lack of affordable and youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services and lack of affordable transport for young people to travel to clinics. We also heard from Kedibone from the Public Services Union, who spoke of the power of collective organising and bargaining for women’s rights in the workplace. We need gender responsive public services, such as high quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights and affordable childcare services to enable girls to stay in school, to support women to access decent work and to safeguard women’s rights in work. Without access to gender responsive public services, such as essential sexual and reproductive health services including family planning, women cannot choose if and when and how many children to have. Across cultures and in all economies, women continue to do the lion’s share of unpaid care work and this affects the type of paid work they can access. Unpaid care work restricts women from getting decent work in both the formal economy and the informal economy. The caring women do for their children, elderly, sick relatives, the work they do running of the home also affects their time and creates practical barriers in accessing the critical public services they need. Women, many of who are poor and marginalized and shoulder the majority of unpaid care work in their communities, mostly take up work in the informal economy which is unregulated. For example, 83% of domestic workers worldwide are women. Work in the informal economy can be more insecure and precarious. It has specific impacts on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women. For example, a lack of regulations can make women more vulnerable to lower wages, limited access to health care, maternity leave or child care. Women may be more vulnerable to workplace discrimination, including sexual assault and rape. There are many women in the informal economy who are particularly marginalized. Migrant and immigrant women are often forced into the informal sector as a result of their immigration status where they are less likely to be able to access health care, let alone maternity leave or child care. Given the fact that women will continue to work in the informal economy, support for care work remains extremely important for women to access decent work. Governments must invest in core public services such as health, education, water and transport to ensure that girls and women have the support and services they need in order to participate across economic life. In addition regulatory frameworks, so policies and practices that support and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, should meet women where they are-wherever they are. We must also talk to actors outside of our sector. This includes organizing with trade union movements, harnessing the power of collective bargaining for sexual and reproductive health and rights in the workplace. We can and must demand our rights. This involves unionizing workplaces and making sure that union structures and policies address women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and are included in collective agreements. We see examples of collective organizing for sexual and reproductive health and rights in the workplace across the world. In Lesotho, unions have organized training and workshop for women and low pay, risk of sexual assault, lack of maternity benefits were all issues that were raised. In Kenya, the Kenya Union of Sugar Plantation Agricultural Workers have made recommendations for a union programme that addresses occupational health and safety, maternity protection and the provision of childcare facilities. The South African Clothing and Textiles Workers Union have built partnerships with employers and government to address high risks of HIV and gender-based violence in the workplace through joint union/employer statements and bargaining council agreements. More than ever, we need cross-movement building. As sexual and reproductive rights advocates, as women’s rights activists, we must start organizing across our sector; across agendas. Agendas that are all interlinked. The fight for reproductive justice is a long standing one. It is intimately linked to women’s unpaid care work and women’s access to decent work. Our starting point must be there. WANT TO GET INVOLVED? SUBSCRIBE NOW TO GET UPDATES FROM IPPF SUPPORT OUR WORK WITH A DONATION