Oumou Keita
Senior Program Officer, West & Central Africa Region
En collaboration avec le Réseau des Femmes Sénégalaises pour la Promotion de la Planification Familiale (REFESPF) et le projet Knowledge SUCCESS, le Project PACE, mis en œuvre par PRB, vous invite à un dialogue politique virtuel entre des jeunes leaders et des décideurs politiques.
Ce dialogue est basé sur une note de politique élaborée par PACE, une analyse secondaire de résultats de recherches fournissant des recommandations politiques pour réduire les barrières à l’utilisation durable des contraceptifs par les jeunes.
Cette rencontre a pour objectif de renforcer l’engagement des décideurs régionaux à surmonter les obstacles à l’utilisation durable de la contraception chez les jeunes, et également de créer des liens et des opportunités de collaboration entre les organisations dirigées par des jeunes, les journalistes et les jeunes chercheurs.
Les présentations seront suivies d’une table ronde avec :
Modéré par :
Aïssata Fall, Conseillère Régionale Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre, PRB
Nearly everyone has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the globe, straining health systems and people’s abilities to maintain their livelihoods.
This global health crisis combines with the climate crisis to exacerbate existing inequalities that overwhelmingly affect vulnerable populations, such as women, youth, those living in poverty, and rural and indigenous communities.
On June 3, 2020, leaders in the fields of conservation, reproductive health, and gender equality convened to discuss the shared challenges and impacts arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and the common areas of opportunity they are witnessing to harness this moment for positive change.
Panelists evoked the gravity as well as the opportunity of the challenges facing the development community in the face of COVID-19, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. All panelists emphasized that COVID-19 has served to highlight existing development challenges, further highlighting the linkages between areas such as gender, livelihoods, human rights, and conservation, as well as the importance of multisectoral approaches to enhance resilience to such shocks. “COVID-19 has made it clear that humanity is dependent on nature, that interconnectedness of nature and life on earth infuses every part of our lives,” stated Kaddu Sebunya. Echoing a similar sentiment, Latanya Mapp Frett drew parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis in terms of their effect on existing and interrelated inequalities, stating, “we see an amazing amount of interconnectedness between climate and gender at every single level.”
While the direct public health impacts of the virus’s spread have been devastating, its secondary impacts on economic security, mobility, and safety affect the well-being of vulnerable communities. Jason Bremner presented data on household surveys from women in due to the pandemic, indicating: “It wasn’t as much about the lack of a method, but much more about lack of money to pay for a method or concern about safety,” preventing women from accessing essential reproductive health services during the pandemic. Similarly, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka pointed to the economic impact on communities living near national parks dependent on tourism, who found their major source of income devastated during the crisis. “One thing that has come out of the pandemic is the need to not just see tourism as the only financial incentive to conserve wildlife, because tourism comes and goes … there is a big need to find other livelihoods, and also to value conservation in other ways,” she states.
While the impacts of COVID-19 are severe and far-reaching, the panelists also highlighted the fact that the global pandemic presents an opportunity – and a call for action.
This webinar is part of the Africa Population, Environment, Development (PED) webinar series made possible through the USAID-funded PACE (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health) project. For regular updates about PED news, opportunities, resources, and other events, subscribe to the monthly Global PED updates newsletter online and follow @AfricaPHE on Twitter.
Pathfinder International and partners in Kenya and Uganda have implemented the Health of the People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project since 2011.
The project aims to scale up its use of the population, health, and environment (PHE) community-development model at local, national, and regional levels by integrating PHE considerations in formal government development planning and policies. “PHE” refers to the PHE approach, which aspires to increase access to comprehensive reproductive health services and improve maternal and child health care practices while simultaneously improving natural resource management in project communities.
On April 30th, 2019, HoPE-LVB project implementers and evaluators discussed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation report on the model’s effectiveness and scalability. Released in April 2018, the USAID report addresses three key questions:
What are stakeholders’ perceptions of the HoPE-LVB project model’s added value to family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, livelihoods, governance, natural resources management, or conservation?
Has the HoPE-LVB project’s explicit focus on systematic planning for scale-up resulted in positive outcomes for the model’s institutionalization, sustainability, and expansion?
To what extent did the HoPE-LVB project achieve its objectives as measured by its key performance indicators/results?
The evaluation of HoPE-LVB had been long anticipated, as the project was supported by cross-sectoral investments by multiple donors and represents a pioneering East African PHE project implemented at scale.
The webinar, scheduled at 9:00 a.m. EST on April 30, 2019, was hosted by the PACE (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health) project. It included the following speakers:
Clive Mutunga of USAID provided introductory remarks on USAID’s support for PHE models globally and what USAID learned from the evaluation of HoPE-LVB.
Eileen Mokaya of Pathfinder International provided an overview of the HoPE-LVB project.
Richard Kibombo of Global Health Program Cycle Improvement Project (GH Pro) shared the evaluation’s results and his suggested next steps for PHE sustainability and scale-up.
Family Planning High Impact Practices (HIPs) are a set of evidence-based practices developed by experts in the family planning sector that improve family planning and reproductive health outcomes. This webinar, hosted by the PACE (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health) project and the Implementing Best Practices Initiative Secretariat, explores how HIPs can be applied in development programs that integrate multiple sectors at the community level, including family planning.
The newly published web feature and policy brief, provides background on HIPs and explores the promising opportunity to expand their use within population, health, and environment (PHE) projects. Speakers Laura Cooper Hall (Population Reference Bureau), Caitlin Thistle (United States Agency for International Development), and Yvette Ribaira (JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc.) discuss the value of HIPs to PHE projects and family planning outcomes and highlight how PHE projects are already implementing HIPs elements in their activities.
The webinar concludes with a Q&A session between Caitlin Thistle, a HIP expert, and Yvette Ribaira, a PHE project implementer.