Launching campaign to improve access to family planning methods in Kenya

Kenya has been lauded globally for meeting its FP2020 target to increase the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) to 58%, five years early. For this result to be maintained, we need to ensure that women can access a choice of contraception and family planning methods, regardless of age, geography, and income.

In July 2018, our Evidence for Action (E4A)-MamaYe programme launched the #JazaShelves (“Fill up the shelves”) advocacy campaign in Nairobi. Today, the campaign will be launched in Bungoma, to coincide with World Contraception Day. The campaign is targeted at key policy makers, including the country health management team, and officials at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA), demonstrating the impact on women and girls’ lives, if contraceptive methods are not in stock.

In Bungoma, where 49% of births in 2017 were unintended, every contraceptive method was out of stock at some point in the same year, and only 57% of health facilities in the county had the staff trained to deliver family planning services.

In both counties, the campaign has been created with media and civil-society organisations, who have been equipped with the evidence and platforms to effectively advocate for better commodity security for family planning methods. Advocates now have information on stock availability and the training status of staff at facilities – enabling them to demonstrate that women and girls are not able to access facilities with adequate stock or trained staff and, because of this, unable to plan if and when they have a child.

#JazaShelves aims to catalyse action. E4A-MamaYe is calling on policy makers and county government staff to ensure that there is timely forecasting of commodities from facilities, a line specifically for family planning in the county budget; timely delivery from KEMSA, and, timely payment from the National Ministry of Health.