How Natural Family Planning is spreading in West Africa
In countries throughout Western Africa, the most common religions are Islam and Catholicism. Both of these religions reject the use of artificial means of birth control, such as condoms or birth control pills. But in government health clinics in most of these countries, artificial birth control methods are often the only options offered for planning […]
West Africa population planners battle to woo Muslim hearts
Population experts like Ngom are worried that if West Africa’s population continues to grow at its current pace – the region has the highest birth rate in the world – it will drive fiercer competition for scarce water and farmland, and fuel malnutrition, conflict and ever more economic refugees. GRAPHIC-Family planning in West Africa: tmsnrt.rs/2zWftuY West […]
A New Year, a New Determination: Energizing the Movement and Accelerating Progress
The Ouagadougou Partnership Six Years in Five years ago, in early December 2012, the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU) was established. Last month in Conakry, Guinea, more than 350 participants from the across the francophone Africa region, Europe, and the U.S. met to assess progress of family planning in the partnership’s nine member countries.[1] Over the […]
Meet the Young Future-Planners of West Africa
They’re informed, determined, and looking ahead for the good of their peers—and their countries. They want to help girls stay in school. To take control of their own futures. To make sure other young people don’t make the same mistakes or have to live the same nightmares they did. There are a lot of reasons […]
Young People in West Africa Are Leading Their Own Movement for Family Planning
The designation of “youth ambassador” may have started as a simple title, but as I witnessed at the Civil Society for Family Planning (CS4FP) Regional Workshop this month, it has grown to symbolize a movement. Since 2011, the CS4FP project has engaged dynamic, dedicated, impassioned young people from across francophone West Africa as family planning […]
Seven Tactics that Are Leading Francophone West Africa toward a Contraceptive Revolution
In 2011, nine francophone West African countries formed the Ouagadougou Partnership to change the story of family planning in the region. Thanks to their efforts, an additional 1.18 million women are using modern contraceptives today.* For these women, this means more control over when to get pregnant and better health for them and their families. […]
Let’s Not Be Squeamish About Family Planning’s Fiscal Benefits
Copyright IntraHealth International 2015 So often when we sing the praises of family planning, we go straight to applauding its health benefits: all the healthier babies and children, the hundreds of thousands of women who survive childbirth, and the millions of abortions prevented. Family planning has changed the world for us all over the past […]