Giving Compass' Take:

• RAND Corporation outlines four steps to achieve the Family Planning 2020 goal of improving maternal and child health in developing counties through increased access to essential health services. 

• How can funders collaborate with existing organizations to increase access to family planning materials? How can these solutions be made sustainable? 

• Learn about Family Planning 2002 in West Africa. 

Family planning is vital to economic development and to maternal and child health. At a summit in July 2012, the global community set the ambitious goal of making modern contraception available to 120 million new users in 69 low-income countries by 2020 — the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) goal. The summit representatives recognized that high-quality family planning data were essential to monitoring progress toward this goal and to help countries stay on track.

  1. Promote country-driven agendas. Fostering country ownership increases stakeholder buy-in and the prospects for sustainability.
  2. Intensify focus on data use. High-quality data must be translated into understandable information for decisionmakers, who then need actionable messages that can inform their decisions, from program planning and management to policy development.
  3. Plan for and measure progress toward data system maturity and sustainability. These improvements do not happen on their own. They must be addressed explicitly.
  4. Build the ranks—institutionalize the development of data capacity. Train more people at all levels in the generation, analysis, and use of data for action.

Read the full article on Family Planning 2020 at RAND Corporation.