Twenty-five years ago, country leaders, advocates and health professionals came together in Cairo for the groundbreaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The meeting resulted in 179 governments adopting a Programme of Action recognizing that reproductive health, women’s empowerment and gender equality are the pathway to sustainable development.

Since this meeting, the world has made great strides in empowering women and girls and improving their health outcomes. But more is needed to realize the Cairo Programme of Action and to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Next month, the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 will be convened to mobilize political will and financial commitments to achieve zero unmet need for family planning information and services, zero preventable maternal deaths, and zero sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls.

In the lead-up to the Summit, Living Goods has made a commitment to reach more girls and women through digitally empowered community health workers to help reduce the maternal mortality rate and unmet need for family planning in East Africa. Living Goods is looking forward to joining heads of state, ministers, parliamentarians, thought-leaders, technical experts, CSOs, young people community leaders, and many more at the Nairobi Summit. Our complete ICPD25 commitment can be read below.

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Living Goods recognizes that universal access to sexual and reproductive health and family planning services are a precondition for women’s empowerment. Today, more than 200 million women lack access to modern family planning and an estimated 830 women die in childbirth every day, many of them girls aged 15 to 19. Living Goods works to ensure we reach these women and girls so often left behind by supporting digitally empowered community health workers (CHWs) to improve health outcomes including reducing the maternal mortality rate and unmet need for family planning in East Africa.

Living Goods commits to advancing the ICPD agenda to expand access and uptake of family planning services and register, monitor, and support pregnancies to flag risk factors and ensure that pregnant women attend all antenatal care clinic visits and give birth in a health facility. Our commitment will be reached by 2030 through increasing the amount of CHWs receiving Living Goods support to deliver family planning and maternal health services, and through targeted advocacy for supportive policies and increased funding.

Uganda

By 2030, Living Goods commits to supporting the Government of Uganda to:

• Extend the provision of family planning services in the districts we operate in across Uganda. More than 7,000 of Living Goods-supported CHWs will provide  comprehensive family planning services including two types of daily birth control pills, condoms, the injectable Sayana Press (DMPA-SP) and referrals for longer-term and permanent methods. Additionally, CHWs will provide client-centered counseling approaches in which CHWs customize messages to the needs of individual women and their reproductive goals.
• Register more than 500,000 pregnancies in the districts we operate in across Uganda to receive regular visits by CHWs who encourage uptake of health pregnancy behaviors including ANC care and facility delivery as well as flag risk factors and danger signs, and referral of high-risk pregnancies to a proper facility. Living Goods will also send automated text messages with advice timed to their delivery date.

Kenya

By 2030, Living Goods commits to supporting the Government of Kenya to:

• Extend the provision of family planning services in the counties we operate in across Kenya. More than 1,000 of Living Goods-supported CHWs will provide comprehensive family planning services including two types of daily birth control pills: condoms, the injectable Sayana Press (DMPA-SP), and referrals for longer-term and permanent Additionally, CHWs will provide client-centered counseling approaches in which CHWs customize messages to the needs of individual women and their reproductive goals.
• Register more than 150,000 pregnancies in the countries we operate in across Kenya to receive regular visits by CHWs who encourage uptake of health pregnancy behaviors including ANC care and facility delivery as well as flag risk factors and danger signs, and referral of high-risk pregnancies to a proper facility. Living Goods will also send automated text messages with advice timed to their delivery date.

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