By Jennifer Schlecht, CARE/FP2020 Senior Advisor on Emergency Preparedness and Response
A timely and innovative partnership between FP2020 and CARE is helping to expand global leadership and drive progress in achieving universal access to family planning within emergency preparedness and response. CARE has made a substantive investment in the FP2020 global partnership by seconding a Senior Advisor for Emergency Preparedness and Response to the FP2020 Secretariat. This position will identify needs and opportunities at the global and country levels, to support commitments and advance family planning for women and girls affected by crises over the coming year.
This fall, FP2020 will partner with the Inter-Agency Working Group for RH in Crises (IAWG) — a powerful global coalition that advances the sexual and reproductive health for women and girls in crises — to co-convene critically needed meetings that will examine implementation learning, develop messages, and materials needed to advance family planning in crises, and advance informed choice and method mix within emergency response.
These focused efforts come as IAWG releases updated global norms and standards for ensuring SRH in crisis response — including the Inter-Agency Field Manual for SRH in Crises, the Minimum Initial Service Package for RH in Crises and UNFPA’s Reproductive Health kits for Emergency Response — all of which speak specifically, powerfully, and consistently to the critical importance of family planning as a core element of effective, coordinated emergency response strategies.
These efforts, as well as those around the Data Roadmap for family planning and SRH in Crises, are moving forward through powerful partnership and coordination among critical actors. High quality humanitarian action demands this level of partnership. I hope that this coordination, combined with increased attention and focus on the issue of FP in crises that resulted, in part, from the 2017 London Summit on Family Planning, effectively brings needed SRHR solutions to women and girls affected by crises.
