‘Re-energising family planning in Zim’

In 1989, the governing council of the United Nations Development Programme recommended that July 11 be observed annually as World Population Day as a way to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues. The United Nations Population Fund advocated for this day in order to give visibility to population issues in the context of overall development plans and programmes. Each year UNFPA selects a different theme to rally around.

The theme for 2012 is, “Universal Access to Reproductive Health Services”.
With the world’s population surpassing 7 billion in 2011, the theme was chosen as a way to re-energise commitments towards universal access to reproductive health and recognising those who provide information, services and supplies. This year’s commemoration also coincides with the International Family Planning (FP) Summit

which is being held in London.
The summit is being hosted by the UK government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with support from UNFPA and other partners.

It is aimed at launching a global movement to give an additional 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries access to voluntary life-saving family planning information, services and supplies by 2020.
In line with the WPD theme and the FP Summit, this year’s World Population Day in Zimbabwe is being commemorated under the theme, “Universal Access to

Reproductive Health Services: Re-energising family planning in Zimbabwe”.
The main objectives of the commemoration are resource mobilisation to promote voluntary access to family planning. Stakeholders will share their commitments towards making universal access to family planning a reality.

Achieving universal access to reproductive health in Zimbabwe. The World Health Organisation defines reproductive health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease.
It implies that men and women have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this is the right to be informed of and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice; and the right of access to appropriate health care services related to their reproductive health.

Reproductive health is at the very heart of development. However, reproductive health problems remain the leading cause of ill-health and death for women of childbearing age globally.

Women suffer disproportionately from unintended pregnancies, maternal deaths and disabilities, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, gender-based violence and other problems related to their reproductive life. Because women are often the backbones of their families, these problems can affect the well-being of the whole family.

Universal access to reproductive health by 2015 is one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goal 5 and its key indicators are contraceptive prevalence rate, adolescent birth rate and antenatal care coverage.
According to the 2010/11 Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS), contraceptive prevalence is estimated at 59 percent which is more than half the number of women of reproductive age.

The contraceptive prevalence rate is the percentage of currently married women who are using a contraceptive.
However, what is critical is to note that the unmet need for family planning which can be defined as the proportion of women who would like to stop childbearing or space their next birth but cannot access family planning are not using family planning has remained stagnant for the past 15 years at 13 percent.

This means that about 211 000 who want to use contraception are failing to access it hence they fail to avoid or postpone childbearing as per their needs.
Placing family planning tools, services and information in the hands of these women would increase the contraceptive prevalence rate to about 74 percent.
Family planning refers to a conscious effort by a couple to limit or space the number of children they want to have through the use of contraceptive methods.

The utilisation of family planning services is voluntary.
Couples can realise their reproductive health goals only when they consistently use reliable methods of contraception.
The ZDHS (2010/11) indicated that 24 percent of women reported having discontinued use of contraception due to side effects, health concerns, need for a better method or inconvenience of the method.

The male condom is the most often discontinued (37 percent), followed by injectables (33 percent), the pill (21 percent) or method related health concerns (17 percent).

There is therefore need for family planning providers to advise potential users of the advantages and disadvantages of each contraceptive method, allowing women to make a more informed decision about the method that best suits them.