Maureen Greenwood with the UN Foundation, Carol Larson, President of the Packard Foundation, Tamara Kreinin, Director of Population and Reproductive Health at the Packard Foundation at the Africa Union awaiting Melinda Gates speech and panel discussion.
Last month over 3,000 attendees came together for the Gates Institute’s third International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conference addressed the right of women to take control of their bodies, their lives and the lives of their families for better health outcomes, better quality of life and a better future, by advocating for access to reproductive health care and options for contraception for all who want it. By empowering women with these critical resources they can make decisions about spacing, timing and the number of children they will have. The Gates hosted the International Conference on Family Planning in the UK, July, 2012 and invested 1 billion dollars, encouraging other donations totaling about 4 billion dollars. Their mission is to raise enough money to fund the unmet contraception and family planning need of 120 million women before the year 2020. Their plan is called FP2020 and you can visit the website to see updates and their incredible progress. Melinda Gates is such an inspiration to me, she is very dedicated to supplying family planning and voluntary contraception which will save millions of lives.
Globally, there are more than 200 million women in the developing world who want but lack access to quality family planning services and supplies.
Serving all women in developing countries who currently have an unmet need for modern methods would prevent an additional 54 million unintended pregnancies, including 21 million unplanned births, 26 million abortions (of which 16 million would be unsafe) and seven million miscarriages; this would also prevent 79,000 maternal deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths.
I participated in the Private Money for Public Good panel. Private philanthropy is key in the international reproductive health and population space. My father’s commitment to these issues has been a major influence in my life. It is a moral imperative that we provide women and girls all over the world with the access and resources they need for family planning. When we empower women with the ability to family plan we save lives and Mother Earth. Tragedies like the recent storm in the Philippines will become more frequent, as we also combat poverty and food and water scarcity. It is essential that we restore and develop with renewable resources, and provide women with the natural systems that support all life.
The Turner Foundation has partnered with the Gates Institute, the UN Foundation and the Hewlett Packard Foundation on the Universal Access Project which is dedicated to increasing funds in the U.S. As a result of the partnership funds have increased by 30 percent in just two years! You can listen to my podcast interview with Mark Goldberg of the UN Dispatch where I go into more detail about the partnership, as well as all of the various issues around empowering women and reproductive health/family planning.
Leading up to the event I participated in the Family Planning +Social Good event. Hosted by the UN Foundation and the Packard Foundation, +Social Good is a conversation about how technology and innovative thinking are advancing family planning goals and objectives. Social media is an invaluable tool in sharing ideas and disseminating information. Use your social media accounts to join the conversation and to be heard.
Overall, I had an amazing time. It was a hectic schedule of sessions, meetings, receptions, and briefings, but I left feeling totally inspired. It is time to stop talking about what we need to do and take action!!!