FP2020 is Sharpening the Focus on Human Rights
Human rights are at the center of FP2020’s vision and goals. Successful family planning programs must be grounded in principles of rights and empowerment, with an unwavering focus on providing women and the means and opportunity to make decisions about their own lives. Rights-based family planning means listening to what women want, treating individuals with dignity and respect, and ensuring that everyone has access to full information and high-quality care. The FP2020 Rights & Empowerment Working Group (RE WG) collaborates with the Secretariat and the other three Working Groups to ensure that a rights-based perspective is reflected throughout FP2020’s work.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS 2014–2015
In December 2014, FP2020 launched the FP2020 Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning. FP2020 worked with a range of international partners to develop these principles, which describe 10 dimensions of human rights that are critical to growing sustainable, equitable, and effective programs with lasting impact. Every partner that commits to working with FP2020 also commits to embracing a rights-based approach to family planning.
In July 2015, on the third anniversary of the London Summit, FP2020 launched a high-profile 10-part blog series illustrating how partners around the world have successfully implemented these rights and empowerment principles in their work.4
Over the past year FP2020 has collaborated with the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) to develop a Global Accountability Tool. The tool will serve as a guide for civil society to operationalize the WHO technical guidelines and recommendations for ensuring that human rights are respected in family planning programs.5 While the WHO guidance urges governments and program managers to incorporate rights-based information and services in their programs, the Global Accountability Tool will enable activists to evaluate how well their local programs are measuring up to the WHO standards and empower them to advocate for greater adherence. FP2020 and ARROW planned to launch the tool in November 2015.
In collaboration with USAID and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), FP2020 contributed a concurrent panel and a side session to the Measurement and Accountability for Results in Health Summit in June 2015. The sessions drew lessons from the rights measurement agenda set by FP2020 and partners, from the stigma and discrimination work done by UNAIDS and partners, and from the Population Council’s project on measuring quality of care in family planning services. During the summit, Population Action International presented the FP2020 Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning on behalf of the partnership.
4. http://www.familyplanning2020.org/microsite/progress
5. World Health Organization. “Ensuring Human Rights in the Provision of Contraceptive Information and Services: Guidance and Recommendations.” Geneva: WHO, March 2014.
