RHSC Factsheet - Delivering on promises

Publication date: 2013

What promises? The last half decade has witnessed many impressive commitments made by governments and other players, to improve the reproductive health of women and their families. Buoyed by the energy and visibility of recent initiatives such as the London Family Planning Summit, the Ouagadougou Partnership, and Every Women, Every Child, governments around the world – especially developing country governments – have taken the international stage to focus the world’s attention on what that they themselves can do to offer the promise of a better life for millions. Yet international events, however, powerful they may be as catalysts for change, are only single moments in time. Once the euphoria of global attention has passed, countries and their governments must confront the hard realities of delivering on promises that are, ultimately, aspirations for the future – barely more than a paragraph in length, rarely aligned with previous commitments, not always explicit in the role of contraceptive security, and rarely supported by concrete programs of action. Through its partners, the Coalition is uniquely positioned to leverage the aspirations voiced on the global stage into powerful drivers for change at home. By working with partners at country level, the Coalition can bring the technical skills needed to translate aspirations into action, celebrating the successes of governments that take appropriate action, and ensuring those successes are replicated globally. The Coalition’s aim is not to render governments accountable to the international community – but rather to hold the international community accountable for realizing the aspirations of the Global South. Helping Partners DELIVER ON PROMISES www.rhsupplies.org Secretariat Rue Marie-Thérèse, 21, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. T +322 210 0222 - F +322 219 3363 - secretariat@rhsupplies.org Why the Coalition? From 2010 to 2012, the Coalition hosted the HANDtoHAND Campaign – a global initiative that, in the eyes of many, was a “forerunner to and underlays the rationale and impetus of the [London] … FP Summit” . The Coalition knows first-hand, therefore, what it means to formulate and deliver on commitments. With our huge international network of multisectoral members and the special quality of its time-tested relationships, the Coalition brings with it • Long experience in helping partners shape and fulfill commitments. • Access to a strong base of family planning (FP) advocates and a technical expertise. • Familiarity and engagement with the principal recipients of global commitments. • Strong support at country level to see global commitments as a catalyst for local change. The way forward Helping partners fulfill their commitments is, indeed, one of the Coalition’s four major, clearly-defined workstreams, endorsed by its donors. Under this workstream, the Coalition will: • Document existing supply commitments. • Explore the financial, program, and policy implications of these pledges to develop meaningful strategies and action plans to achieve them. • Identify regular markers for measuring progress and celebrating success. • Support country-level, multi-sectoral collaboration to ensure the implementation of national action plans. • Documenting and disseminating the success of this approach; facilitate its replication, and encourage others to commit. Outcomes and deliverables These include: • New advocacy action plans to promote RH commodity security-related commitments. • The fulfilment of supply commitments and/or new policy changes in support of RH commodity security. • Dissemination of successful policy/financial outcomes and advocacy approaches. • New global policies that include provisions relating to RH commodity security. For more information, please write to secretariat@rhsupplies.org. D es ig n w w w .in ex tr em is .b e The Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition The Coalition is a global partnership of public, private, and non-governmental organizations dedicated to ensuring that everyone in low- and middle-income countries can access and use affordable, high-quality supplies for their better reproductive health. It brings together agencies and groups with critical roles in providing contraceptives and other reproductive health supplies. These include multilateral and bilateral organizations, private foundations, governments, civil society, and private-sector representatives. The Coalition Secretariat is managed by PATH, an international, nonprofit organization that improves the health of people around the world.

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