Advance Family Planning will co-chair the first ever Advocacy and Accountability (A&A) subcommittee of the 2015 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP). The subcommittee will highlight the role of advocacy and accountability at the global, regional, national and subnational levels in ensuring access to voluntary, quality family planning information, services and supplies.
The subcommittee is open and calling for members of the wider family planning and reproductive health community to join. Members are expected to commit their time and energy from March to November 2015. ICFP will take place in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, from November 9-12, 2015.
Specific objectives of the A&A subcommittee include:
- Promoting submission of abstracts and panels that highlight
- Policy changes and investments that have resulted from effective, evidence-based advocacy efforts and their outcomes;
- The importance of political leadership and how advocacy can strengthen the political environment;
- Advocacy and accountability techniques and successes that can be replicated;
- Data analyses that aid in monitoring policies and government budgets and expenditures; and
- Linkages between policy issues from global to local;
- Other—e.g. the role of advocates in managing crisis communications.
- Collaborating on side events that focus on
- Specific policy interventions, their implementation and impact;
- Global and regional agreements and implications for national plans and policymaking;
- New advocacy and accountability tools;
- Sharing of ideas on what makes for advocacy successes and overcoming setbacks;
- Hearing directly from policymakers or other champions.
- Providing opportunities for advocacy skills-building, particularly for youth representatives.
The subcomittee will be co-chaired by Beth Fredrick, Executive Director for Advance Family Planning and Jay Gribble, Deputy Director for Family Planning and Reproductive Health at Futures Group. The subcommittee is currently seeking a third co-chair from the Global South.