520,000 women use modern contraceptives - GHS

Ghana has made great strides in increasing the number of women using modern contraceptives from 422,000 in mid-2017 to 520,000 by mid-2018, a Ghana Health Service Family Planning (FP) tracker towards Ghana’s progress on global Family Planning (FP) 2020 agenda has indicated.

This development gives a clear signal that Ghana is on track to meeting its commitment made to the global partnership FP2020 to empower women and girls by investing in rights-based family planning services.

FP2020 was set up in 2012 following the landmark London Summit on Family Planning, which raised $2.6 billion for reproductive health efforts in developing countries.

It is an outcome of the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, which is the FP2020 global movement.

It is based on the principle that all women, no matter where they live, should have access to life-saving contraceptives.

FP2020 works with governments, civil society, multilateral organisations, donors, the private sector, the research and development community, with one main goal in mind: “to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020”.

Deputy Minister of Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, speaking at the opening of a two-day FP2020 tracking event dubbed ‘Countdown to 2020: Ghana’s Journey’ in Accra, stated that the Government of Ghana is committed to achieving what it set out to do by 2020 and to forge ahead beyond 2020 with the same enthusiasm and drive to ensure equitable access to quality and affordable family planning services.

“Government is committed to ensuring that all the four broad commitments made to the FP2020 global movement are carried through to ensure that all our adolescents and young people, women and men have access to quality family planning services regardless of where they find themselves, in the cities, towns or villages,” he added.

The two-day meeting aims to provide a platform for stakeholders across multiple sectors to review progress on Ghana’s FP2020 commitments, share experiences and showcase innovative works of various actors towards the attainment of these commitments.

The meeting is expected to allow stakeholders to learn from one another’s experiences as they chart and calibrate paths towards improving access and uptake of family planning towards meeting the national and global targets that have been set before us.

With regard to delivering services, he said the government also was committed to increasing the number of women using modern contraception from 1.46 million (2015) to 1.93 million in 2020 through increasing access and availability of services at all levels, capacity building, improving contraceptive method mix, and increased demand for services.

In his welcome address, Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare noted that achieving the global FP2020 goal, as well as country-specific goals, are, therefore, critical milestones to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights by 2030 as laid out in Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5.

“It is based on this premise that the Government of Ghana, at the first FP2020 Summit in London in 2012, made commitments towards improving access and uptake of family planning services. The country restated these commitments, as well as made new commitments, in 2017,” indicated.