Uganda set for international family planning conference

Ministry of health commissioner for Reproductive and Infant Health Dr Richard Mugahi,. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which she wishes to have them.

Uganda stands to gain from the forth coming international family planning conference as it is expected to boost the uptake of family planning now that the Covid-19 movement restrictions have since ceased, Ministry of Health has said.

Mr Richard Mugahi, the ministry’s assistant commissioner of Reproductive and Infant Health, said the 2022 international conference, slated for November 14 to November 17 in Thailand, is geared towards repositioning family planning as a development issue in Uganda.

Mr Mugahi said due to Covid-19 lockdown interruptions, as the ministry, they noticed a low uptake of family planning among couples.

He said this resulted in unintended pregnancies, high maternal deaths, teenage pregnancies, no clear data on abortions and high deliveries.

“We noticed a low modern family planning uptake of 41 percent among married couples and yet our target was 50 percent for 2020. We failed to achieve it,” Mr Mugahi said by telephone at the weekend,  adding: “The unmet need for family planning is still so high at 28 percent and yet our target was to reduce it to 15 percent by 2020.”

The core objective of the confrence is to bring together stakeholders and sexual reproductive health experts to share learnings, best practices and forge a way forward for advancing family planning and sexual reproductive health broadly in the post Covid-19 era.

The said conference will be attended by various stakeholders from Uganda, with a delegation expected to be led by State Minister for Health, Ms Hanifa Kawooya, with technical support from Dr Charles Olara, the director of Clinical services at the Health ministry.

The team from Uganda will be sharing oral and poster presentations on the various implementations they are leading in Uganda, to showcase Uganda’s progress, innovations and best practices.

A team from the Health ministry will be speaking and participating in various side events at the conference with more details according to Mr Mugahi expected to be shared during today’s preparatory meeting.

Some of the topics that the Ugandan team will be discussing at the conference include; engaging village health teams for interpersonal communication to drive uptake of the family planning: case study of Bukigai health center III in Bududa District, young people at the forefront of contraception provision in fragile post conflict northern Uganda.

Others are; lessons learnt from Covid-19 leverage community health workers to increase access to self-injection in Uganda and increasing access to family planning and self-care information through digital innovation.

Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which she wishes to have them.

Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marital situation, career or work considerations, financial situations.