Family planning is one aspect of the targets around universal access to sexual and reproductive health found in the SDGs (3.7 and 5.6). If your country is a FP2020 focus country or commitment maker, you can leverage the SDGs as a way of increasing the political priority of family planning, as well as ensuring the two SDG targets are being fulfilled. You can also use the Costed Implementation Plans (CIPs) – multi-year roadmaps designed to help governments achieve family planning goals – to strengthen your advocacy for the implementation of both the SDG and FP2020 commitments.

The world is facing a contraceptive funding crisis. Sufficient investment in contraception is not being prioritized at the global, national and subnational level. National and subnational governments need to prioritise family planning by allocating dedicated funds for contraceptive commodities. This discussion paper highlights contraceptive commodity security concerns in FP2020 countries in East Africa that will likely experience a reduction in global funding support for contraception from 2016 to 2020.

On the ground in Nigeria, one of programme officers explains why outreach is so successful: “The project was a one-stop shop which brought services together. So a woman could have screening for breast and cervical cancer, counselling and have access to all methods of family planning at the same place. Also if a woman was detected with early stage of cervical cancer, we were able to carry out a curative operation."

Olusula, 40, is a Community Health Extension Worker in Nigeria. "I refer clients through vouchers to the facility of their choice for long acting and reversible contraceptive methods too", she says.

Monitoring and evaluation officer, Babatunde, is responsible for ensuring the supply of contraceptives for all the IPPF facilities in Nigeria, via an app. "I provided training on the mobile app for the store keepers at the facilities we worked with. All through the nine months of the Clusterplus Project, no facility ever ran out. This meant family planning methods were always available to those that needed them.”

Emiade Kudirat, 24, is a Community Health Extension Worker doing outreach in Nigeria. She specializes in the Sayana Press - a three-month, progestin-only injectable contraceptive favoured for its convenience in administration and portability. One patient, 24-year-old Bukola Polpoola, says she is happy that her treatment was free and easy.