 | In The Spotlight Coalition part of FP2020 Reference Group Coalition Director John Skibiak has been appointed to a core group of 18 high-level experts in sexual and reproductive health and rights, hand-picked to constitute the Family Planning 2020 Reference Group. The Group, which met for the first time at UNFPA Headquarters in New York, will provide strategic direction and oversight of Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) progress towards the achievement of goals set at last July’s London Summit on Family Planning. The Reference Group will have oversight over FP2020’s operational mechanisms, including a Task Team based at the UN Foundation, a Champions Group and four Working Groups.
“It is a privilege to represent the Coalition’s vast network at this level,” said Mr. Skibiak. “We are entering a new era of global RH work where partners are reaching out to one another to forge alliances in order to address 120 million women’s unmet need for contraception by the year 2020. “I trust the Coalition’s history of powerful partnerships will serve as a timely model and we hope to harness the potential of our 200-strong membership to support this cause.”
The Coalition has also been invited to co-lead the FP2020 Market Dynamics Working Group along with the Clinton Health Access initiative (CHAI). The Coalition will play a key role in identifying and convening relevant parties for collaboration on Working Group initiatives. |
 | Coalition on the scene Interview with LAPTOP Scholar online Last month, we announced that two applicants had been awarded the Coalition’s LAPTOP scholarships to further their knowledge of supply chain management. Simplice Kamdem from Cameroon, technical advisor for commodities at USAID/PEPFAR in Côte d’Ivoire, recently spoke to the Coalition about hope, loss, and everyday realities of unmet need. Read his frank interview here. |
| Coalition supports UN Commodities Commission Many of the Coalition’s 214 members are both leaders and active participants in UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children. To help them contribute more effectively to this critical effort, the Secretariat has put online a number of new tools. It has updated the Supplies Information Database (SID) to include all new documents and working papers published by the Commission since early 2012. It has created a one-stop clearing house containing presentations and other important materials delivered at Commission meetings since Oslo. It has set up listservs, via the Knowledge Gateway, for many of the Commission’s 23 Technical Resource Teams (TRT). It has created an online portal that allows anyone interested in joining one of TRTs to do so in one click. And finally, it has placed direct links on the Coalition homepage to both the Commission (Every Woman, Every Child) and FP2020 websites. |
| Coalition paper on post-2015 agenda A paper submitted by the RMA WG has been selected as part of an online round-up conducted in association with the UN thematic consultation “Health in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda”. Chosen from hundreds of submissions, the paper draws on the Coalition’s rich experience in forging effective relationships to demonstrate the power of partnership. Ensuring equitable access to quality RH supplies will never be achieved by one agency or sector acting on its own; a wide spectrum of actors has a crucial role to play. The paper offers 10 important recommendations, citing the Coalition’s own achievements as examples of how a partnership approach has paid great dividends. Click here to access the paper. For more information, contact Sarah Shaw (IPPF), leader of the RMA WG’s “Post-2025 Workstream”. |
| French Minister for Women's Rights: message to the Coalition now online France’s Government Spokesperson and Minister for Women's Rights Najat Vallaud-Belkacem pledged her country’s support to the Coalition’s work in a landmark video address on the occasion of the Coalition’s 13th Annual meeting. In it, she reiterated that the right to contraception was an issue of "major economic, social and humanitarian concern", and pledged that all women worldwide should enjoy the rights that French women do. Her rousing speech, subtitled in English, is now available online. The meeting reinforced our relationship with the French government, underscored by the presence of the French Health Ministry’s Dr. Gustavo Gonzalez-Canali on the Coalition’s Executive Committee. |
| Coalition welcomes new Monitoring and Evaluation Officer The Coalition welcomes on board Véronique Dupont as our new M&E Officer. This is an ideal time for this function to help boost the Coalition’s ambitious new phase. Véronique brings with her a solid track record in M&E, fluency in French and Spanish, and extensive field experience across the Americas and Africa. She holds an MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University. |
| Coalition seeks to fill three new posts The Coalition is gearing up for what promises to be a banner year for both reproductive health and commodity security. In 2013, Secretariat staff numbers are set to double as the Coalition expands technically and geographically, and directs its work in a host of new focus areas. To this end, three new posts have been announced: Deputy Director, Senior Program Officer for Market Shaping, and Senior Program Officer for Reducing Stockouts. Please follow the links to learn more about these posts and to apply. |
| Coalition welcomes three new members in December This brings the Coalition's total membership to 214• Zhejiang Qiantian Latex Technology, China, manufactures 200 million condoms every year • Jeffrey Hollender Partners, USA, markets organic, fair-trade condoms • Démographie Responsable, France, a non-governmental organisation working in communication on FP and population |
| Highlights from the Working Groups LACForum to host elections and finalize draft strategic plan. This month, key stakeholders from across Latin America met routinely by teleconference to forge a new strategic plan for the LACForum. Building on a broad conceptual framework identified last November by the Forum’s Steering Committee, the stakeholders aim to present a draft plan for review at the LACForum’s next Annual Meeting, which will take place in Lima in late April. The LACForum is also seeking nominations for candidates to fill four key seats on its Steering Committee. The seats include two representatives of Ministries of Health from within the region, one representative of a non-governmental institution; and one representative of any organization working in the region in the area of reproductive health commodity security. Voting procedures are now online and the deadline for all nominations is 28 January. For more information on Steering Committee elections, or the strategic planning process, please contact Maria Rosa Garate. |
| RMA WG support to WHO Taskshifting efforts With considerable support and technical back-stopping from the RMA WG, WHO released its guidelines on task shifting in mid-December. The guidelines include important recommendations on the delivery of injectables, IUCD and implants, and offer an important resource to advocates at country level. Earlier this year a Taskshifting Workstream was created within the RMA WG to reinforce the need for such guidelines, assist in the evidence review, and support their development. The WG is now focusing its attention on implementation at country level. For more information please contact RMA Working Group Leader Leo Bryant at Leo.Bryant(at)mariestopes.org. |
| RMA’s joins civil society consultation on post 2015 agenda In December, a six-member team representing the RMA-WG joined a regional civil society consultation entitled ‘Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda’. RMA’s Edward Kinabo, from Tanzania, reported that “our delegation made a difference” in ensuring that access to SRHR information, services and supplies was included among the 2015 priorities. In the beginning no one was talking about family planning … we managed [to get on the table] key health issues like Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality; from there we started talking about universal access to reproductive health and family planning in particular". |
| Upcoming events
If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please click here and type "unsubscribe" in the subject line. |
Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition
Rue Marie-Thérèse, 21 · 1000 Brussels, Belgium · Tel: +32 (0)2 210.02.22 · Fax: +32 (0)2 219.33.63
www.rhsupplies.org · communications@rhsupplies.org
