The Government of Malawi accords high priority to the promotion and practice of family planning (FP) as one of the ways of improving the quality of life of its people. Malawi, among several countries in Africa, made commitments during the Family Planning London Summit (FP2020) in July 2012 to achieve a modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) of 60 percent by 2020 from 33 percent for married and sexually active women, with a focus on reaching the 15–24 age group.
The Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS, 2010) indicated that 42 percent of married women used FP methods, while only 33 percent of all women of childbearing age use contraceptives. This shows that contraceptives in Malawi are mostly used by married women, resulting in a high fertility rate of 4.0 in urban areas and 6.1 in the rural areas, with an average of 5.7. There is a need therefore, to raise awareness of family planning among all women of childbearing age.
To ensure that the FP2020 commitments are met, there was a need to develop a national plan to provide direction to Malawi’s FP programme, ensuring that all components of a successful programme are addressed and budgeted for government and partner buy-in. The Malawi Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (FP-CIP), 2016–2020 has detailed plans to achieve Malawi’s vision and goals to improve the health and well-being of the country’s population.
The FP-CIP has therefore been developed for FP programming for the government across all sectors, development partners, and implementing partners.
