Effective Community Approaches to Family Planning Conference - July 25-29, 2011

	Conference attendees look at family planning related materials at the Zambia booth. Source: USAID

More than 150 professionals, representing 13 countries in Africa (including the newest country in Africa, the Republic of South Sudan) and organized in country teams from government and civil society, attended this conference, July 25-29, 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya.

The purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for Africans to share innovative and promising practices among themselves to strengthen community level program implementation. The conference was country led as the country teams were engaged in the design of the conference and in leading the discussions. Further, the country teams uniquely included a community health worker, a community youth outreach worker, or a community chief. The discussion addressed the difficult questions of expanding and sustaining the community health workers, generating community ownership, achieving smart community integration, and meeting the special needs of youth. The conference was enriched by field visits to multiple community and youth outreach sites in and near Nairobi and an observational tour of Ethiopia's innovative Health Extension Worker program.

	Source: USAID

At the conclusion of the conference, the country teams developed ideas as to further strengthen community level programs, shared it among themselves and identified three or four priority actions for incorporating them in the program. Plans are underway to bring at least part of these delegations together to review progress at the upcoming Gates Institute-sponsored International Family Planning Conference in Dakar later this year. The Effective Community Approaches to Family Planning conference was hosted and organized by the Ministry of Planning, Government of Kenya and co-sponsored by USAID (East Africa Mission, Africa Bureau, and Global Health Bureau). Representatives from the World Bank and the French Agency for International Development also attended the conference.