The Government of the Republic of Zambia recently launched their FP2030 Country Commitment, a Costed Implementation Plan, Investment Case, and “Road Map to RMNCH,” to position itself to build on the goals outlined in the FP2030 commitment.
Speaking on the launch, Zambia’s Minister of Health, Honorable Sylvia Masebo, said, “Among the key steps that have been undertaken include aligning national family planning strategies in-line with global and regional commitments anchored on the principles of harnessing the demographic dividend for adolescents, young women, and women as espoused in the African Union 2030 and 2063 agenda.”
Honorable Masebo added that Zambia has developed an Integrated Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan with a focus of repositioning family planning not only a health issue, but a critical factor in national development.
She added by 2030, Zambia should have a family planning program within an integrated reproductive, maternal, adolescent, newborn and child health program that optimizes its capacity to address both demand and supply barriers of access and use of modern contraception.
The Government of Zambia commits to spend US$12 million in 2023 of family planning programming in Zambia and subsequently increase by 30% annually. The Government will support the generation of new data, improving the quality of and better use of existing data for family planning programming and decision making.
Honorable Masebo said they envision a transformed Zambia, where “A woman or adolescent girl’s decision to use modern contraception is supported and accepted.” The Government is committed to providing an enabling environment for rights-based, family planning/sexual and reproductive health service delivery for all adolescents and young people that will contribute to the reduction of teenage pregnancy from 29.2% to 25% by 2026.
“Zambia’s Family Planning Program is highly donor dependent. To sustain national ownership, the country needs to increase domestic resource mobilization for family planning commodities, service delivery, and demand creation” added Honorable Masebo.
FP2030 East and Southern Africa (ESA) Hub Managing Director, Dr. Sheila Macharia, commended the Government for bringing family planning to the center of national development and its focus on adolescent and young people.
“As the ESA Hub we are over-excited by Zambia’s commitment and its drive to place family planning at the center of national development, with special focus on adolescent and young people. The Hub will work closely with Zambia to ensure the commitments they have made are met or even surpassed,” said Dr Macharia.
Zambia is the 13th commitment-making country in the Eastern and Southern Africa region.
