This short TV clip shown on Uganda's NBS TV was about the 2011 Regional Meeting of the Southern and Eastern African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees of Health, “Repositioning Family Planning and Reproductive Health in Africa: Lessons Learnt, Challenges and Opportunities” held at the Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala, Uganda, 27-29 September 2011. The meeting was hosted by the Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office. More information on the meeting and its outcomes is available online at: http://www.ppdafrica.org/index.php/en/programs/policydialog/parliamentarymeetings
SEAPACOH Meeting on Uganda's UBC TV
This short 2-minute TV clip shown on Uganda's UBC TV was about the 2011 Regional Meeting of the Southern and Eastern African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees of Health, “Repositioning Family Planning and Reproductive Health in Africa: Lessons Learnt, Challenges and Opportunities” held at the Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala, Uganda, 27-29 September 2011. The meeting was hosted by the Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office. More information on the meeting and its outcomes is available here: ppdafrica.org/index.php/en/programs/policydialog/parliamentarymeetings
News Article: Family planning helps women … and slows climate change
News Article: Family planning helps women … and slows climate change
The Guardian (London UK) Poverty Matters Blog 5 January 2021 By Jotham Musinguzi
Family planning helps women … and slows climate change
With women empowered to plan their pregnancies, the world's population will grow more slowly, as will carbon emissions
We've long known that giving women the family planning services they want and need would be a boon for the health of families throughout the world. Today, in every country, far too many go without. Short spaces between births can make women more vulnerable to poverty, illness and even death. This is a human rights and health issue for hundreds of millions of women around the world.
In my home country of Uganda, women with an unmet need for family planning face major challenges. Among them are distances to health clinics, the costs of contraceptives, the hostile attitudes of some demotivated health providers, socio-cultural barriers, and a lack of supplies.
Mrs Kizito, 29, a mother of six, travelled 7km from her home in rural eastern Uganda to her nearest clinic for a check-up and her next dose of contraceptive pills. After her regular blood pressure check, she was told by the nurse that the type of pills she normally takes were not in stock. Her second and third next most suitable alternatives were not available either.
Instead, she was offered male condoms and advised to persuade her husband to use them until her regular stock of contraceptives were available – at least a few of months. She returned home, not knowing whether she would convince her husband to use the condoms, and well aware of her husband's ambivalent attitude towards family planning.
These challenges, however, are solvable. Take Mrs Kyomugisha, 24, a mother of three from rural western Uganda, 10km away from the nearest health centre. Four years ago, Family Health International (FHI), an NGO working with Uganda's ministry of health, began providing family planning services.
Kyomugisha narrates how she and her husband had been stressed by the coming of their three children one after another, until the visit of a community health worker shortly after the birth of their third child. The health worker explained that injectable Depo-Provera was now available.
Mr Kyomugisha said this was the best news they had heard for a long time. Since then, the family has used the injectable method to prevent additional pregnancies. Voluntary family planning allowed the Kyomugishas to fulfil their wishes for the size of their family, while reducing pressure on their limited family food supply.
Where voluntary family planning is available, families are empowered. Where it is not, the lack of access takes a heavy toll. In Uganda, 435 women die for every 100,000 babies born. Dying as a result of pregnancy is the leading cause of death for women. High maternal death rates such as Uganda's are an indicator of an inadequate healthcare system, which is clearly a violation of women's fundamental rights to life, health and self-determination.
This violation is not a complicated puzzle to solve: investing in access to voluntary family planning reduces maternal deaths by up to 40%. And meeting the demand for birth control – enshrined by the UN as a millennium development goal – would enable dramatic progress in achieving not only the maternal health development, but all the other MDGs as well.
We now know that meeting women's needs for family planning not only strengthens the health and rights of families around the world, but will also help slow dangerous climate change.
Recent research suggests that simply meeting existing "unmet need" would deliver up to one-seventh of the carbon reductions essential to slow global warming, and at a very low cost. With women empowered to plan their pregnancies, the world's population grows more slowly, as do carbon emissions.
We have an opportunity to address two critical objectives at once: improving the health and lives of women and children and, simultaneously, helping to slow dangerous climate change. In addition, we need to remain aware that poor countries with the least adaptive capacity are expected to suffer most from the adverse effects of climate change, including hurricanes, devastating floods, and melting ice caps.
Any strategy that enhances human health, dignity and empowerment while also reducing global warming is not just advisable, it's essential at this stage. There is no time to lose.
Of course, it is naive to think any single idea or programme will yield the results we need to address global climate change. Yes, wealthy, industrialised countries must reduce their consumption; yes, nations around the world must reduce dependence on fossil fuels; yes, we must develop more effective, environmentally sustainable technologies, and yes, use energy more efficiently.
But it's time to pursue all possibilities and combining efforts. The facts are clear: funding that empowers women to access voluntary family planning is a win-win for women, men, children and climate change.
News Article: Champion of Public Health in Africa to Address UAlbany School
Champion of Public Health in Africa to Address UAlbany School
Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, first MPH graduate, Led Ugandan Fight to Quell AIDS Epidemic
ALBANY, N.Y. (December 03, 2020) -- Dr. David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health in 1990, knew something special had occurred when Dr. Jotham Musinguzi entered the School's new Master of Public Health (MPH) program that year. Dr. Musinguzi arrived with a medical degree from Makerere University Medical School in Uganda and had already dedicated himself as a public health physician to fighting the scourge of AIDS in his native land.
Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, MPH '91, a leader in African efforts at population growth and reproductive health, will speak at the School of Public Health on Thursday, Dec. 9.
He would become UAlbany’s first MPH graduate in 1991, return to Uganda and become a major factor in the nation waging the most effective national response to AIDS of any African country. He has become an international voice on behalf of reproductive health and family planning, as well as HIV/AIDS.
On Thursday, Dec. 9, the School of Public Health welcomes him back as he delivers an address as part of the School’s 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speaker Series. Dr. Musinguzi, now regional director of Partners in Population and Development of the Africa Regional Office Statistics House in Uganda, will speak on Attaining the United Nations Global Millennium Development Goals by 2015: Opportunities and Challenges.
"The School of Public Health is honored to have Jotham as an alumnus and as a distinguished alumni speaker during our 25th anniversary celebration," said Dean Philip Nasca. "For more than 20 years, he has been a leader in Africa in the fields of population studies, the fight to stem HIV/AIDs, maternal and child health, and in many important areas of reproductive health."
The program begins at 3:30 p.m. in the SPH auditorium. Event registration can be made by email at
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.
"Jotham is one of our program's most distinguished graduates, and it was a remarkable coincidence that he happened to be the first one," said Carpenter. "It was certainly a good standard to set for everyone else."
Carpenter is not surprised by the magnitude of Musinguzi's career, or that his longtime friend would remain loyal to SPH and its programs. "I knew him even then as a fantastic individual — very motivated, very idealistic, and he's gone on to have an extraordinarily distinguished career. He came from a country that was among the very first to be hit severely by the AIDS epidemic, and today it has done an outstanding job of controlling the spread of the disease.
"He was also the first student from any African country to enter our school. Since then, we have had at least 10 students from Uganda, and all because they were recruited by Jotham."
For many years director of Uganda’s Population Secretariat, Musinguzi is currently a trustee of the Population Council of New York and a board member of the Africa Population and Health Research Centre based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has been president of Uganda Medical Association, chairman of the International Council on Management of Population Programmes, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and has represented Uganda on most major international meetings, including many U.N. summits.
As a member of these groups, Musinguzi has consistently advocated for inclusion of strong and clear language on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS in all official documents.
Source: http://www.albany.edu/news/10963.php
News Article: MPs FORUM: More needs to be spent on reproductive health
MPs FORUM: More needs to be spent on reproductive health Guest Writers Written by Sarah Nyombi Nansubuga The Observer (Uganda) Sunday, 24 October 2020 17:13
Sarah Nyombi Nansubuga, Ntenjeru County Every year, about 6,000 Ugandan women die from pregnancy related causes and a total of 297,000 women have induced abortions, most of them unsafe.
Up to 40% of these deaths and 84-85% of induced abortions could be prevented if all women in need of modern methods of contraception were able to access them. But these contraceptives are in short supply. As a result, at 41%, Uganda is among the countries with the highest unmet need for family planning and total fertility rate of 6.7 children per woman, putting the population growth rate at over 3% per year, the third highest in the whole world.
Due to efforts by Members of Parliament and civil society organisations, Uganda received a loan from the World Bank of $130m of which 30m was allocated to reproductive health. On September 30, 2010, MPs under their umbrella forum Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians (NAWMP-U) and the Reproductive Health Supplies Advocacy Network, led by Reproductive Health Uganda, met with the Minister of State for General Duties, Richard Nduhuura, to discuss allocations to reproductive health under this loan.
The MPs were reliably informed that the World Bank funds are to be spent on four major interventions under the reproductive health component. These are: increasing access to Emergency Obstetric Care, ensuring skilled attendance at birth, scaling up of Family Planning and focused antenatal care.
In total, $18,949,654 (about Shs 42bn) which is 63% of the $30m is allocated to procurement of reproductive health supplies, including Emergency Obstetric Care, and equipment, long term and permanent method commodities (lUDs and implants) and Family Planning equipment, as well as procurement of oral contraceptives.
While it is commendable that the government has secured this loan, we as Members of Parliament together with our partners, Reproductive Health Uganda, call upon the government to increase its own expenditure on reproductive health supplies, particularly family planning supplies.
We also appeal to the government to go beyond allocation of funds for procurement of reproductive health supplies and ensure that what is allocated is actually spent on supplies. Historically, only a small percentage of the allocation for reproductive health is actually spent; for instance only 6.4% of the 1.5 billion shillings allocated to procurement of contraceptives by the government in 2008, was actually spent.
As Members of Parliament, we undertake to exercise our oversight role on this one and will keenly follow up the funds to ensure that they are spent on procurement of reproductive health supplies and that losses are minimised.
We also appeal to the media to continue taking a keen interest in matters of reproductive health. The media can help us by writing stories that stimulate public debate and create widespread awareness, and hold the government accountable in fulfilling its role in promoting and protecting the reproductive health of our population.
Once we do this, we believe we shall go a long way in reducing the unmet need for family planning, improve maternal health situation in the country and save the lives of our mothers and, in the long run, contribute to national development.