Melbourne, February 8, 2017 – The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is proud to launch the latest phase of the SPRINT initiative, delivered through IPPF’s new, dedicated global humanitarian platform, IPPF Humanitarian. Together, they are thought to be the single largest humanitarian effort worldwide exclusively focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights in crises. Commencing in 2007 and now in its third phase, the SPRINT initiative continues to be generously supported by the Australian Government. Running from 2017 to 2019, Phase 3 of SPRINT will enable IPPF to reach communities affected by natural disasters – particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Very welcome announcement made today by @JulieBishopMP at #AAC2017 of $9.5m for sexual and reproductive health during crises via @ippf — ACFID (@ACFID) February 14, 2017 Sexual and reproductive health and rights in emergencies are too often overlooked and under-funded. When left ignored, women and girls in crisis situations are particularly vulnerable and face numerous health and psychosocial risks. At any given time, one in five women in a crisis may be pregnant, whilst over 500 women and girls die daily in conflict and fragile states from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Thank you @IPPF DG Tewodros Melesse for inspiring words on how reproductive health saves lives & helps #womenandgirls globally #SRHR pic.twitter.com/rFCGsIiDgy — Jamie Isbister (@AusHumanitarian) February 14, 2017   The SPRINT initiative addresses this situation by ensuring access to high-quality care through the Minimum Initial Service Package for Reproductive Health, an internationally recognised standard. IPPF and its Member Associations work to support national governments of disaster-prone countries to be ready when disaster strikes, and more able to respond and recover. IPPF’s Director General, Mr. Tewodros Melesse, has welcomed the launch of SPRINT 3 and the official opening of the new IPPF Humanitarian Hub in Bangkok, Thailand and Sub-Hub in Suva, Fiji. “IPPF praises the ongoing support and leadership of the Australian Government and the generosity of the Australian people in prioritising this critical and under-funded element of humanitarian response. IPPF is immensely grateful for the opportunity to continue its long-standing partnership with the Australian Government, together ensuring that women and girls in crises can access life-saving sexual and reproductive health care when they need it most.”   Press Contact Johanna Wicks, Chief – Australia and New Zealand Office, IPPF Email: [email protected] Phone: (+61) 3 8459 2185

Mexico City Policy will have a devastating impact for International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) with its extension far beyond family planning.  Restrictions into support for HIV, maternal health and infectious diseases programmes will mean that millions will be denied lifesaving healthcare they need. The policy will hit hardest, the women living at the margins of society – the poorest, the most remote and those under 25.    The Global Gag Rule, also known as the Mexico City Policy, denies US funding to organizations who provide any abortion related services, including counselling, even when such services are legal in a national context.   IPPF has a special focus on working with the world’s most poor and vulnerable and tailoring services to meet their needs. At country levels, the US funding loss will reduce or halt IPPF’s services and arrest opportunities to scale up, build capacity and reach more people.   Tewodros Melesse, IPPF Director General, said in reaction, “For over 30 years, the Mexico City Policy has played politics with women’s lives. It is a cynical attempt to silence the choice and voice of the world’s poorest women.  As a champion for them and people everywhere, we will not be held back.   "This extended policy covers every aspect of IPPF’s work with the world's poorest people. It also fails in its stated intent to reduce the global incidence of abortion. With the expansion of its restrictions to work on broader health efforts it is short-sighted and dangerous, and threatens years of IPPF gains to advance the health and well-being of communities and undercuts health care access for millions worldwide.”   The extended policy will now affect IPPF’s long record of working on HIV prevention in more than 20 countries covering Africa and Latin America often providing clients integrated sexual and reproductive health care services. The Global Gag rule could also endanger emergency funding for Zika prevention, education and health services in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the epidemic continues to rage.   Examples of Country Impact: Barbados: IPPF partner Barbados Family Planning Association receives funding from the U.S. government to provide HIV prevention and education services to at-risk, hard-to-reach populations including men who have sex with men. The Caribbean has the second-highest HIV prevalence rate among adults after Sub-Saharan Africa.   Nepal: IPPF aims to increase voluntary use of family planning services by increasing accessibility and availability of quality comprehensive family planning services to the hard to reach, disadvantaged, poor and adolescent populations in 11 districts and increase access to voluntary family planning information, education, and services. Nepal has failing and patchy family planning coverage which is often only available at certain times of the year. IPPF are working closely with the government to expand and strengthen static clinics in selected district hospitals, health posts and health facilities with birthing centers to reach all year round, reaching eligible couples with high unmet need. Malawi: The Family Planning Association of Malawi are providing much needed integrated family planning and HIV prevention to young adolescent and women in Malawi via clinics and outreach teams travelling to communities to raise awareness and offer services for vulnerable young women to prevent and treat sexual  gender based violence, HIV infection and access to family planning. Without funding they will no longer be able to provide or expand this vital information, support community learning and offer both family planning services and treatment for sexual and gender based violence in one place.   The rule blocks critical funding for health services like contraception, maternal health, and HIV prevention and treatment for any organization that refuses to sign up to it.    For IPPF, it means foregoing US$100,000,000 that would be directed to proven programmes that provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for millions of women and girls who would otherwise go without vital services that save lives.   IPPF is the world’s largest women’s health network with members in 170 countries with over 45,000 service delivery points delivering over 300 services a minute. Individuals can donate to IPPF’s online appeal www.ippf.org/donate     WANT TO GET INVOLVED? SUBSCRIBE NOW TO GET UPDATES FROM IPPF SUPPORT OUR WORK WITH A DONATION JOIN OUR THUNDERCLAP     View my Flipboard Magazine.

14 December 2016, Tokyo - IPPF attended the World Assembly of Women (WAW!) 2016, which was held in Tokyo on 13-14 December, and made a case that Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) is fundamental for women’s empowerment, and universal health coverage cannot be achieved without universal reproductive health coverage.  At the WAW conference, Japan’s Prime Minister Mr Shinzo Abe said women’s voices are not prioritised in crisis. The international community was not allowed to leave the issue of sexual violence under crisis, he added. Mr Abe stressed that under crisis situations, the international response will be improved remarkably if women’s perspectives are fully incorporated into it. At the same time it is matter of life and death to improve maternal and child health. The international community needs to take action on these issues and give hope to people affected, to build a future together.  Tewodros Melesse, Director General of IPPF, said: ‘Poor is the women whose happiness depends on the approval of others.  From birth, every women has rights to shine. A comprehensive approach, where empowered women make their own decisions, is the key to ensuring no woman is left behind’  Tewodros Melesse also had a meeting with H.E. Mr Odawara, Japan’s Parliamentary Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr Odawara said that the Japanese Government highly appreciated IPPF’s activities to respond to women’s needs by closely working with Japan. Mr Melesse raised the issue of global uncertainty, which could give a serious impact on IPPF’s activities to protect women’s health, rights and lives, and requested Japan’s further assistance and continuing strong leadership in the SRHR area.     

Dear friends, colleagues and partners, As September 19th, the date for United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants, approaches we can’t help but to continue to be overwhelmed by the rising number of refugees across the globe and their growing needs. It has become clear that the global community will have to take strong, committed and focused actions in order to ensure that the needs of those vulnerable populations are met. Children, the elderly and women are the ones most at risk in these perilous situations. We need to ensure that their specific needs do not go unnoticed. During this year’s World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, UN Member States, civil society and other stakeholders made commitments to increase their support in emergency situations. The Summit on Refugees and Migrants presents another unique opportunity for Member States to show resilient support. In the final draft of the Summit’s outcome document great strides were made in ensuring women’s rights and needs were addressed. Through strong advocacy efforts from IPPF UN Liaison Office, United Nations agencies and strong Member State commitment we were able to secure language that is a great step forward in access to sexual and reproductive health services. Specifically, thanks to our work, the declaration promises to: “…ensure that our responses to large movements of refugees and migrants mainstream a gender perspective, promote gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, and fully respect and protect the human rights of women and girls. We will combat sexual and gender-based violence to the greatest extent possible. We will provide access to sexual and reproductive health-care services...” The necessity for sexual and reproductive health and rights in humanitarian situations is critical. We, therefore, ask you to include in your national statements during the Summit on Refugees and Migrants Summit, the unequivocal requirement for the sexual and reproductive rights of refugee and migrant women to be fulfilled and that sexual and reproductive health services be systematically included in the refugee crisis response. I thank you in advance for the attention given to this very important matter and hope to count on you to support this key action. Together, we can make a difference in women’s lives, and bring to those that have lost everything a little bit of hope for the future.   Yours Sincerely, Tewodros Melesse  

Matthew Lindley, IPPF Humanitarian Transition Lead, comments on the Grand Bargain commitments from the World Humanitarian Summit. “There is no denying that sexual and gender-based violence, unwanted pregnancies, early and forced marriage, trafficking, sexually transmitted infections (including HIV), maternal morbidity and death increase in humanitarian situations. Any humanitarian effort needs to take a long view as the average time that people may be displaced or in camp can be a staggering 20 years. That is enough time for a woman to get pregnant, have a child and for a child to reach adolescence. The current humanitarian system has failed women and girls time after time, year after year. As traditional humanitarian funding and organizations largely concentrate on food, shelter, WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), livelihoods, nutrition and public health but not on sexual and reproductive health and rights as a lifesaving concern. The Grand Bargain is a welcomed move towards a vision where a comprehensive and collaborative approach is taken to save lives and with greater investment. Yet while there have been many discussions at the Summit around how women and girls and young people are particularly at risk and quite simply not able to access basic services, we have not seen this translated within the document. There is still no clear commitment to this area for core funding at all. We need to see more commitment to this area with core humanitarian funding for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services as a matter of priority if humanitarian efforts are truly going to ensure that no one is left behind. “

Ms. Anjali Sen, Regional Director, IPPF-South Asia Region said “It comes as a huge relief that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has decided to reconsider its blanket ban on all advertisements of contraceptives in the electronic media. In the first place, it was an ill-considered order in the backdrop of the fact that Pakistan has the highest population growth, birth and fertility rates among the South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal. This blanket ban had raised serious questions because the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) for women in reproductive age in Pakistan is an abysmal 35.40, as per 2013 figures. Given the realities of fertility rates and population growth in Pakistan, the Pakistani policy makers must understand that information on contraceptive choices is the key.  From around the world, we have many examples on how a desire for smaller families have led to greater investments in family planning, which have helped transform the age structure and consequently contributed to overall well-being. If the power of media, including the electronic media is harnessed, Pakistan will not stare at a projected 342 million people by 2050. Pakistani policy makers will appreciate that such population explosion will ultimately jeopardize the gains that Pakistan has made over the last few decades. A blanket ban on all contraceptive commercials in electronic media would have been counter-productive and it would have unspeakably harmed Pakistan’s national interest in slowing the population growth. If anything, the state and its agencies should actively facilitate free flow of information on contraceptives and the choices available if Pakistan has to achieve its population and development priorities. As a leading provider and advocates of family planning, South Asia Regional Office of IPPF welcomes PEMRA’s withdrawal of a blanket ban on advertisement of contraceptive products on Pakistani electronic media."