Sekai Manyere
Herald Reporter
Zimbabwe’s bid to host the 8th International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in 2028 received a big boost after assessors from the William H. Gates Sr. Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health were impressed by the facilities and warm welcome that they received.
Zimbabwe is up against South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt. The conference is held every two to three years. Speaking in Harare on Wednesday, head of the mission and Gates Institute director Mr Phil Anglewicz said a key highlight was the strong support from the Government.
“We have had strong support from the Ministry of Health, and we spent a lot of time talking to the Minister of Health,” he said.
He said there was great coordination across ministries within the Government in preparation for potentially hosting the conference.
“It seems like there is great coordination across ministries within the Government. So just to see that level of collaboration I think is really inspiring and very impressive,” he said.
The team also visited the proposed venue for the event, the Harare International Conference Centre, which Mr Phil described as a beautiful facility.
“We also looked at the facility where we’d hold the event, if it takes place here, and it’s a beautiful facility,” Mr Anglewicz said.
. “I think it’s one of the largest, if not the largest, in Africa in terms of number of seats,” Mr Anglewicz said.
He said Zimbabwe has the features organisers want because the work of the ICFP is cross-sectoral, involving health, finance, gender and international work.
The team also assessed whether the country can handle large numbers of visitors who will need visas, and was satisfied.
Chair of the ICFP International Committee Secretariat, Mrs Kellie Welborn, said the two finalists were expected to present their bids to the core organising group, which will then deliberate and choose the winner.
“We are going to be presenting the two finalists who will possibly co-host the ICFP 2028,” she said.
She said the winning country or countries will then enter the agreement stage. The world announcement will be made once the agreement is signed.
Organisers plan to announce the next location in February 2027, but the winning country will know before then.
Speaking in Harare after a three-day assessment mission, the UNFPA Country Representative, Ms Miranda Tabifor, said UNFPA is one of the core organising group members of the conference and hosting the mission in Zimbabwe was very exciting for the organisation.
“Hosting the mission here in Zimbabwe and accompanying the mission is very exciting for UNFPA because that is exactly what we are called to do when a country actually is bidding to host such a conference of this magnitude,” she said.
She said UNFPA brings technical expertise, financial support and human resources to support the Government.
“We bring our technical expertise; we bring also our financial support, the human resources that we have; we actually galvanise all of that to support the Government to deliver on this agenda,” she said.
She said UNFPA was looking at an integrated agenda covering family planning, maternal health and newborn health and hosting the conference would be the first time it comes to the SADC region, which brings together 16 countries.
She said young people will not be left out. She said the event will tackle teenage pregnancies, child marriage and child abuse.
