IUSSP Urban FP Fellowship Programme

International Conference on Urban Health, Xiamen



The IUSSP Panel on Family Planning, Fertility and Urban Development will be participating in the 16th International Conference on Urban Health in Xiamen, China, 4-8 November 2019. They have organized two panel sessions on the programme (see descriptions below). This is an excellent opportunity for the 2019 fellows to present their preliminary research findings and meet with actors in the urban health field. It is also an opportunity to put family planning on the urban health agenda. If you are attending the ICUH conference, your warmly invited to attend and meet the IUSSP Urban FP fellows.

 

The first Panel Session, Family Planning in Urban Health Systems, will take place on Wednesday 6  November from 08:00-09:00 (Lily Room).


This session will begin with an overview of reasons why family planning issues have been neglected in urban health research, and the failure of urban health to become a global political priority. Speakers will offer case studies based on research from Guinea, Uganda and Kenya on the barriers urban poor face in accessing family planning. A case study from The Challenge Initiative programme in India will describe how Indian municipalities are literally “buying in” to urban family planning services with their own funds. 



Moderator: Judith F. Helzner, Project Coordinator, IUSSP Programme on Urban Family Planning and Fertility

 

Speakers  include:


  • Trudy Harpham, co-chair, Scientific Panel, IUSSP Programme on Urban Family Planning and Fertility – Why have family planning issues been neglected in urban health research, and why has urban health not become a global political priority? (presentation to be made using a prerecorded video.

 

  • Alex Delamou, IUSSP Urban FP Fellow – Understanding Barriers and Enablers to Family Planning Use Among Urban Adolescents and Youth in Conakry, Guinea.

 

  • Moses Tetui, IUSSP UrbanFP Fellow – Health systems and the family planning landscape among the urban poor in Kira Municipality, Wakiso district, Uganda.

 

  • Mukesh Sharma, Director/Chief of Party, The Challenge Initiative for healthy cities, India – A “business unusual” approach activates existing service delivery models to identify and serve urban poor with their desired quality family planning services in 31 cities of India.

 

  • Boniface Ushie, Associate Research Scientist in Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health and Rights, African Population and Health Research Center (co-author Blessing Mberu), Change and continuities in family planning among the urban poor in Nairobi slums.


The second Panel session,  Family planning, fertility and urban development: lessons from research, will take place on Wednesday 6 November from 9:10-10:10 a.m. (Lily Room) 

The session will present recent research findings on urban family planning and discuss the neglect of family planning in urban research. Key knowledge gaps that challenge the creation of effective urban health systems will be discussed.

Moderator: Blessing Mberu, Senior Research Scientist and Head of Urbanization and Wellbeing Program, African Population and Health Research Center; Executive Board member, ISUH.
 
Speakers  include:

  • James Duminy, IUSSP Urban FP Post-Doc, – Urbanization, health trends, family planning research and knowledge priorities for the global South.

 

  • Nkechi Owoo, IUSSP Urban FP Fellow – Assessing the effect of fertility on household food security and child malnutrition outcomes in urban Nigeria.

 

  • Pierre Akilimali, IUSSP Urban FP Fellow – Understanding the heterogeneity of family planning outcomes among urban population in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

  • Leiwen Jiang, Population Council and Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI), Shanghai University – Assessing health needs of rural-urban migrants under plausible urbanization trends.

 

In addition to the two Panel sessions during the conference, IUSSP is organizing a pre-conference communications workshop 1-3 November for the fellows in collaboration with communications trainers from the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). 


The activities are funded under a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at supporting research and policy engagement on fertility and family planning in urban development.