When women and girls are able to decide whether and when space births, not only do they survive, but thrive. And when women thrive, families thrive, communities do better and countries prosper.

Therefore, the Indonesian President Jodo Widodo urged governments to “take real action” as “investment on family planning [FP] was absolutely necessary” and to eliminate “stigma, prejudice and discrimination” from women’s lives.

He was addressing the nearly 2,000 delegates participating at the opening of the fourth International Conference on Family Planning, being held in Bali, between Jan 25-28. Held every other year since 2009, the ICFP has, in the words of the organisers, “brought together the family planning community to share best practices, celebrate successes, and chart a course forward”.

The president’s sentiments echoed the theme of the conference — Global Commitments, Local Action. With global financial crises in FP with a dip by $20 million in 2014, Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, said dwindling resources from donors meant countries needed to come forward.

Holding the FP conference in Indonesia makes sense. From 1976 to 2002, it doubled the use of modern contraceptive; thereby halving the fertility rate (the number of children a woman has).

“Many lessons can be learnt from Indonesia, which is also a Muslim country and has achieved a lot in mother, newborns and child health,” said Begum Zakia Shahnawaz, Minister for Population Welfare Department, in Punjab.

Dr Tauseef Ahmed, country representative of Path­finder International, a non-profit family planning and reproductive health organisation said that in the past Pakistan had sent many teams to learn from Indo­nesia. “But not a single team guided or steered to adopt the success story of Indo­nesia.” Bangladesh did and made progress, so did Iran and Egypt, even Jordon did.

In Pakistan six million married women say they don’t want more children or want to space births, but are unable to do so. The percentage of couples using both traditional and modern contraception methods is very low at just 35 per cent.

According to Dr Sartaj Naeem, principal at the Regional Training Institute for Population Welfare Dep­ar­tment in Khyber Pakhtun­khwa, said the Indonesian formula could bring dividends. “Engage with religious leaders and youth and increase the number of and build the capacity of community midwives and we, too, can make a difference,” she told Dawn.

Pakistan plans to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2020, and to raise the use of contraception to 55 per cent by then. “The presence of the Punjab minister for population welfare and officials from departments of population and hea­lth from the different provinces speaks volumes of the political will,” said Dr Fauzia Assad, senior programme manager, with Jhpiego, an international consulting firm working on RH.

But Pathfinder’s Ahmed remained sceptical of the international commitments made by the federal government that are not owned by the provinces. “Provinces are not being provided funds by the centre consistent with the commitments.” Doing quick calculations, he pointed out: “Even though Punjab commits CPR of 52 pc, Sindh 42 pc, KP 35 pc and Balochistan 29 pc by 2020; these do not add to 55 pc. And if all goes well Pakistan as a whole practically commits much less than that it committed in 2012. It is around 48 pc if we put these together.”

However, there are small successes made by organisations trying to fill the void left by governments that need to be celebrated. One such success — Aman Foundation’s work on maternal and child health through its Sukh initiative — was among the three recipients of the Global Humanitarian Award for Women’s and Children’s Health at the opening.

Partnering with local government, Sukh was initiated two years ago in Karachi and has been able to reach scores of married women and brought them into the fold of contraceptive use.

“The award pays tribute to the passion and spirit of our community health workers in improving the lives of thousands of women. In Aman’s seven years on the ground, we have touched millions of lives and we are developing models that are scalable, sustainable and systemic,” Fayeeza Naqvi, chairperson and co-founder of the foundation, told Dawn on receiving the award.

“Today I speak to you as a mother and as a woman. Family planning not only means awareness and availability of contraceptives; it means giving women economic opportunities. And giving women control over their bodies and their destiny is the right thing to do,” she said in her acknowledgement speech.

Dr Christopher Elias, pre­si­dent of the Global Deve­lopment Programme at the Bill and Melinda Gates Fou­ndation, that is co-hosting the conference announced committing an additional $120 million over the next three years in three areas it has identified — advocacy by making compelling and consistent case for budgets, policies and programmes ensuring more women and girls can access contraceptives; improving the quality of services women and girls receive with emphasis on long-acting reversible and injectable contraceptives and fund programmes for the most marginalsied.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2016