Assessing approaches to demand-side family planning measurement with a reproductive justice and rights framework

 
Call for Papers and Participating Experts

for an in-person meeting to be held

5-7 March 2024

in Kenya

 (The exact location will be communicated later) 

 

IUSSP International Expert Meeting organized by the IUSSP Scientific  Panel on 
Rethinking Family Planning Measurement with a Reproductive Justice and Rights Lens

 

  • Deadline for submission/registration: 22 October 2023

 

Alongside the growing availability of family planning (FP) services and increasing use of contraceptive methods globally, there is increasing attention to supporting equitable access to FP services and to meeting individual’s reproductive needs and goals. Yet the most common measures the FP field and researchers rely on– such as contraceptive prevalence, unmet need and demand satisfied– do not capture important aspects of equity or of individuals’ needs, goals, preferences, and behaviors. While there has been a long history of critique of these measures; recognition of the imperative to improve FP measures and measurement has become more widespread, particularly in response to well-founded concerns that reproductive autonomy is threatened by an intense focus on contraceptive uptake and the call of the reproductive rights and reproductive justice movements to reframe goals and programmatic intentions to prioritize and reflect individual’s values and preferences.

 

In this context, there is a need for researchers, program implementers, policymakers, advocates, and other civil society members to come together and examine measures and measurement approaches that can be used to assess family planning progress, opportunities, and gaps in a way that is reflective of individuals’ self-identified needs and goals and supportive of the global goal of universal access to sexual and reproductive health.

 

This expert group meeting will bring together a multi-disciplinary community of researchers, advocates, and thinkers from different regions and countries to navigate a path forward for future measurement of population-based family planning demand-side indicators [i.e., measures of needs, goals, preferences, and behaviors related to fertility and family planning].  This expert group meeting will include presentations on novel measures already developed, thought pieces on considerations for future measurement, and group discussions of ways forward for family planning measurement.    
 

Please download and read the complete description for this call for papers.

Click here for versions in French and Spanish.

 

Note that there are two ways to participate in this expert group meeting: 


a) Submit a paper to be presented on  a focused area - SUBMISSION FORM for PAPERS


b) Serve as a discussant with an emphasis on programmatic, policy, and/or advocacy implications of measurement - SUBMISSION FORM for Participating Experts