Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a global partnership that supports the rights of women and girls to decide, freely, and for themselves, whether, when, and how many children they want to have. FP2020’s core indicators are the suite of quantitative metrics for using to measure progress towards its goal: enabling 120 million additional women and girls in 69 focus countries to use modern methods of contraception by the year 2020.
The government of Bangladesh made its FP2020 commitment at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning and updated it in 2017 — including specific policy, financial, and program and service delivery pledges—to meet their family planning goals.
SERAC-Bangladesh and Right Here Right Now Bangladesh platform arranged a meeting on Monday, July 30, 2018, with the FP2020 country focal points, stakeholders, officials of Directorate General of Family Planning to mainstream young people’s participation in the country engagement working group at the CCSDP conference room of DGFP in Dhaka. The meeting explored scopes of youth participation in the FP2020 country mechanism.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. Md. Moinuddin Ahmed, Line Director (CCSDP) of DGFP. Speakers included Dr. Abu Jamil Faisel, Civil Society Focal Point of FP2020 Bangladesh, Dr. Mohammad Sharif, Director (MCH) of DGFP, Dr. Md. Joynal Haque, Program Manager of DGFP, Dr. Md. Mahmudur Rahman, DD (CCSDP), DGFP, Dr. Md. Manjur Hossain, AD (MCH), DGFP, Dr. Shafiqul Islam, Health Advisor of DFID Bangladesh, Md. Azmal Hossain, Project Management Specialist of USAID, Dr. Abu Sayed Mohammad Hasan, Technical Officer-Family Planning & ASRH of UNFPA Bangladesh, Khadija Mustari Maheen, RHRN focal of UBR, Saraban Tahura Zaman, National Program Coordinator of RHRN Bangladesh, Dr. Sanjib Ahmed of USAID.
Member Secretary of FP2020 Country Engagement working group Dr. Moinuddin Ahmed said it is vital to consider the control of other factors including child marriage and early pregnancy which is crucial to achieving FP2020 country commitments. Young people can play a role by implementing innovative strategies to reach the targets, collaborating with the government.
Dr. Mohammad Sharif added without considering youth the achievements on adolescent reproductive health will go challenged, and youth should be the ultimate target for all SRH programming.
Dr. Abu Sayed Mohammad Hasan mentioned, globally 250 million additional users of contraceptives are to be reached by 2020, and it requires a massive youth-led awareness and capacity building programs.
@SERAC_BD and RHRN Bangladesh arranged a meeting with the #FP2020 country focal points, and officials of #DGFP to mainstream youth participation in the country working group, in Dhaka today.https://t.co/OMGwL86wed@FP2020Global @rhrn_youthsrhr pic.twitter.com/ss1kmkRprx — SERAC-Bangladesh (@SERAC_BD) July 30, 2018
@SERAC_BD and RHRN Bangladesh arranged a meeting with the #FP2020 country focal points, and officials of #DGFP to mainstream youth participation in the country working group, in Dhaka today.https://t.co/OMGwL86wed@FP2020Global @rhrn_youthsrhr pic.twitter.com/ss1kmkRprx
— SERAC-Bangladesh (@SERAC_BD) July 30, 2018
Khadiza Mustari Maheen raised that without proper access for youths, the committed goals will not be achieved.
Dr. Abu Jamil Faisel presented the FP2020 country commitments and stressed about the importance to include all adolescents and youth in the discussion to create more engagement spaces to achieve the targets government is thriving for.
The discussants raised concern about the connection between the high rate of child marriage and high fertility rate among adolescents, while a debate emerged around the access to family planning services and commodities to married adolescents versus unmarried ones. This event was moderated by SERAC-Bangladesh Executive Director SM Shaikat and co-facilitated by Sadia Rahman, Program Officer of SERAC-Bangladesh.
