Urban FP panel at the Africities Summit 2022

 

The IUSSP Scientific Panel on Family Planning, Fertility and Urban Development will organize a special session at the 9th Africities Summit to be held in Kisumu, Kenya 17-21 May 2022 to raise awareness of family planning and reproductive health issues among African urban policymakers and practitioners. The Africities Summit is the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa’s (UCLGA) flagship pan-African event, which is held every three years in one of the five regions of Africa. The theme of the 2022 Summit is the role of intermediary cities of Africa in the implementation of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and the African Union Agenda 2063.

 

The Panel session, entitled “Family planning is critical to urban development: what you need to know and what you can do” brings the lessons learned about the contributions of family planning to urban development to city level mayors and policy makers in Africa. The session is organized in collaboration with The Challenge Initiative (TCI), a global platform for rapid scale-up of urban reproductive health solutions based at Johns Hopkins University with regional hubs in sub-Saharan Africa. It will feature research fellows and panel members from the Urban Family Planning project funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

The session will be chaired by Hon. Esther Passaris, Nairobi County Women Representative, and moderated by Dr Nkechi Owoo, with Dr Donatien Beguy serving as discussant. The presentations and speakers include:

 

  • How are family planning and urban development linked? (Dr James Duminy, University of Bristol)

  • Urban reproductive health and family planning and their role in African city policies (Dr Alex Ezeh, Drexel University)

  • Success in supporting African cities to improve reproductive health and family planning (Njeri Nyamu, TCI East Africa)

  • Dr. Sunday Adedini (IUSSP research fellow, speaking on Ibadan and Kaduna, Nigeria)

  • Dr. Moses Tetui (IUSSP research fellow, University of Waterloo, speaking on Kira municipality, Uganda)

 

The session seeks to:

  • Debunk the myth that migration is the primary driver of urban growth in Africa – centering fertility in our understanding of African cities, and cities in our understanding of demographic change in Africa.

  • Demonstrate the potential for family planning as a low-cost mechanism to promote urban economic development, gender empowerment,  family planning  and sustainable development, and city resilience.

  • Show that development need not precede fertility decline and that meeting unmet need for family planning could have significant effects on fertility change.

  • Discuss how family planning is representative of wider difficulties in integrating health interventions with urban governance.

  

IUSSP members attending the Africities Summit are invited to attend and join the discussion. Once the session time and date are available, they will be posted on the IUSSP website.