On February 4, 2021, Dr. Hasto Wardoyo, Chairperson of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), reaffirmed Indonesian government support for expanding advocacy as it formulates new commitments to the Family Planning 2030 partnership. The statement came during a virtual event to recognize progress made under Family Planning 2020 and conclude the decade-long advocacy partnership under Advance Family Planning (AFP). A new report, Revitalizing Local Ownership of Family Planning: A Decade of Advocacy in Indonesia, by AFP local partners Yayasan Cipta and the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs celebrates the partnership’s achievements.
Indonesia’s family planning program—historically one of the strongest in the world—has had several transformations in its seventy-year history. By the start of the 21st century, the program's progress had slowed. A decade of strategic advocacy has since re-energized the family planning community, enabling collaboration across government and civil society to leverage multi-sector investment, capitalize on policy change, and improve access to quality information, services, and supplies.
In collaboration with government partners and other stakeholders, AFP has:
- Secured US $17.8 million in local funding for family planning. From 2009 through 2019, AFP’s 10 focus districts and their villages allocated a total of nearly 183.1 billion Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) (US $17.8 million) to local family planning activities.
- Safeguarded family planning in national plans and protocols. When the national health insurance scheme launched in 2018, AFP ensured full coverage of family planning services. In addition, we made sure that new government guidance for districts, municipalities, and villages on funding and planning local activities included family planning.
- Improved quality and access across the country. AFP’s advocacy potentially reached 63 million women of reproductive age. Policy changes helped build capacity of family planning providers, supported mobile family planning services in remote areas, and improved data reporting and management.
- Reinvigorated the family planning program at the community level. From their own budgets, 611 villages in eight districts allocated a total of nearly 9.52 billion IDR (US $692,000) for their family planning activities from 2013 through 2019. AFP’s advocacy at the national level ensured that villages across the country could include dedicated family planning activities.
- Strengthened local ownership of family planning. AFP facilitated the establishment of 572 multisector advocacy working groups—16 provincial, 10 district, 31 subdistrict, and 548 village teams, involving about 6,000 participants.
The government capitalized on this success, adapting AFP’s SMART advocacy approach to BKKBN SMART, in collaboration with the MyChoice project. Taking it to scale, the government included this approach in its national advocacy strategy in 2018 and five-year strategic plan in 2020. This leadership provides a strong infrastructure for advocacy not only to survive beyond AFP also to thrive.