Uganda: Winner of Excellence Family Planning Award at international conference.

Uganda wins

Uganda’s Minister of Health Dr. Jane Aceng (lifting the EXCELL award) in Kigali, Rwanda where the International Conference on Family planned ended yesterday (November 15th 2018).

Uganda won the top award for expanded access to family planning services at the largest international family planning conference that ended in Kigali, yesterday (November 15th 2018).

Uganda took home the country level Excellence in Leadership for Family Planning Award (EXCELL) for its outstanding results in expanded access to voluntary use of family planning services, across all levels of the health system (public and private) .

Minister of Health Dr. Jane Aceng making an acceptance speech (Photo courtesy of Rwanda’s Ministry of Health)

Uganda delegates at the conference join the Minister on the podium to accept the award (Rwanda Ministry of Health photo)

Awarded at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) that opened at the Kigali Convention Centre on November 12th 2018 and ended on November 15th 2018, Uganda got recognised for its remarkable family planning progress that has resulted in

a 27.3% contraceptive use by women enabling them to delay or prevent pregnancy
A 904,000 increase in the number of Ugandan women using family planning since 2012.

Jubilating Ugandans at the International Conference on Family Planning (Rwanda’s Ministry of Health photo)

The EXCELL Award is awarded at three levels; Country level (the top category and which Uganda took alongside Burkina Faso), Organisational level (won by Profamilia, Columbia), Team Award (won by Save the Children, Yemen) and Individual Award (won by Burkina Faso’s Minister of Health-Professor Nicolas Meda).

Burkina Faso also won the EXCELL Award Country category (Courtesy photo-Ministry of Health Rwanda)

Uganda’s Minister of Health Dr. Jane Aceng (last right) on table with Rwanda’s Minister of Health (first right) Dr. Diane Gashumba (Kigali Today photo)

Uganda hosted the first International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kampala in 2009. The conference is held every 2 years bringing together researchers, scientists, policy makers, young people, faith leaders and advocates in strategic focus on family planning. One of the main goals of the conference gathering is to increase family planning funding so that an additional 120 million women in developing countries can access voluntary quality contraception by 2020.

The Kigali ICFP Conference brought together over 3700 delegates (of which 600 were youth) from over 100 countries. Its theme was ‘Investing for a Lifetime of Returns’ and dwelt on highlighting the social and economic benefits of family planning investments.

A video recap of the entire conference can be viewed below

The 2018 ICFP was made possible by Rwanda’s Ministry of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, based at the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.